Possession

by Celia Fremlin

“I’m sorry,” I said meekly. “I’m most terribly sorry—about everything. Please believe me when I say I didn’t mean—I never meant—”

  “I know. I realised afterwards that of course you didn’t know what you were doing. I daresay you even thought you were protecting me—saving me from worry!” She laughed, a small, metallic sound. “But you didn’t know how much worry, did you? If you’d known … how much I was really worrying …!”

  “I’m sorry,” I said again, helplessly. We were still standing there, awkwardly, in the hot little carpeted hall. She had closed the front door behind me, but she still made no move to invite me into any of the rooms, or to offer me a chair. Yet she did not seem unfriendly: It was more as if she was totally at a loss, cut off from her social moorings, and hanging like a person in space, without guidance from any known laws or forces. She seemed no longer to recognise herself as hostess, or me as visitor; it was as though we had moved, via some vast, silent, topsy-turvy circle, onto some plane where such rôles were obsolete, signifying nothing. In front of her small, trim body her hands clutched each other, the strong little fingers lacing and interlacing in silent, miniature dance.

  “It’s not your fault,” she said at last. “It’s mine. There’s something I should have told you, you see: something I would have told you, only I kept hoping…. That is, I kept thinking perhaps it would all somehow come to an end of its own accord. You remember that day—that Sunday—when I came to your house, and—and made Mervyn see that he must break off the engagement?—Well, I was going to tell you then—I had come intending to tell you, but then, when Mervyn gave in like that, it seemed unnecessary. It seemed that the whole thing was over, and I would be able to keep my secret. But then, when it all started again … when I realised there was nothing I could do to stop it … when I found that no threats, no persuasions, would turn him from his course…. It was then that I knew I was going to have to tell you. But I still kept putting it off…. I couldn’t bring myself…. But now—Now all I can do is to tell you the truth. My son, Mrs Erskine, is a murderer.”

  CHAPTER XVIII

  I WILL TELL Mrs Redmayne’s terrible story, not as she told it me herself that afternoon, interrupted by telephone calls, muddled by tears and terror, darting backwards and forwards across the years as memories flared in her mind, sudden and fearful, and in no coherent order. Instead, I will tell it as I managed to piece it together afterwards, when the tumult of its first impact had subsided, and when I was no longer hanging distraught over the telephone, waiting for faceless, countless hordes to ring us back: the Bristol A.A.: the Bristol branch of Mervyn’s firm: the Queen’s Hotel: those friends of Sarah’s that she had stayed with one holidays…. I shall never again, I think, be able to stare into that motionless face of a telephone dial—which doesn’t even mark the passing of the time—without remembering that afternoon, and the sick, stupefying sense of disaster not yet fully realised. Always I shall remember that little narrating voice running on and on like a clockwork toy, as if it could never stop; as if something had been released which would go pounding on and on towards the end of time.

  This was the story.

  In a quiet little house, in a quiet little street, in a quiet little town, there once lived a quiet couple called Mr and Mrs Redmayne. Mr Redmayne was doing well in a quiet way in his chosen career—the police force; and Mrs Redmayne was as orderly and affectionate a little housewife as you could hope to find. This happy couple had a nice little boy called Mervyn. A polite little boy with nice clothes, nice manners, and often top in Latin: the sort of little boy any parents might be proud of. Until, that is, he was fifteen or sixteen years old. Then the trouble began.

  Of course, trouble with a boy of that age is no remarkable phenomenon; and it was with this well-known fact that the anxious parents kept consoling each other, as their son’s behaviour began to seem—to them—more and more odd. He became idle where he had once been industrious; rude where he had once been polite: and whereas he had once been a biddable, considerate son to them, he now seemed to go out of his way to hurt and shock his parents. And odd ways he sometimes found to do it, too; the day came when—whether with deliberate intent to shock or not will never be known—he suddenly began playing with dolls. To his parents’ unutterable horror, the dolls he had had when he was a toddler were dragged out from the back of the old nursery cupboard, and were dressed and undressed, put to bed and got up again, as if he was four years old.

  Take no notice, said the school doctor, bluff and blasé, up-to-the-minute even if it killed him (or his patients). Take no notice … adolescent sexual fantasies … pay no attention. Above all don’t criticise or jeer … let him work through it … grow out of it in his own time.

  They were an earnest couple, the Redmaynes, with a profound faith in experts: they tried to follow the doctor’s advice. Even when one of the dolls was found hanging by its neck from a beam in the boy’s bedroom … and then another … and another.

  “The doctor said take no notice,” said the couple anxiously to each other. “He says Mervyn’ll grow out of it, and he’s the expert, he knows.”

  And apparently he did; for now, at seventeen, Mervyn suddenly turned to girl-friends—real girl-friends, from the local school. The dolls grew dusty, hanging neglected from their beam, and still the parents did not venture to take them down. To do so would hardly—would it?—constitute “taking no notice?” Expert advice must be followed—and besides, at the moment the expert advice seemed to be paying-off. Mervyn was at last leading a life appropriate to his age, going out with girls, bringing them home: particularly, after a while, a sexy little creature called Avril. It began to seem, indeed, that the old problems were merely to be replaced by other—albeit thoroughly normal—new ones. This Avril girl, although she was made-up to the nines, couldn’t have been more than fifteen. Her parents—adoptive parents that is—seemed to take no interest in her activities, or even her safety: she would be out with Mervyn till midnight or later, and then he would bring her back to his own home, and still no one rang up or made any enquiries as to her whereabouts.

  It seemed all wrong to the orderly Redmayne parents: and when reprimands and exhortations failed, Mr Redmayne finally made a habit of waiting up for the young couple and driving the girl home himself across the deserted, midnight country town: a charitable deed which was, of course, noted by his country neighbours who put a less charitable country interpretation on it: hence the rumours which had come to the schoolgirl Sonja’s ears.

  And then, one morning, the girl Avril was found, hanged, in a shed behind the block of flats where she lived: hanged like those dolls growing dusty as they dangled from the beam in Mervyn’s room. The Redmaynes learned about it from the headlines in the next day’s papers. It was too much, at last, for the tortured, conscientious mother: in defiance of all that expert advice, she tore down the gruesome throng and threw them in the dustbin.

  Was it this that first showed Mervyn that his parents suspected him? Not a word was said by the anguished pair, not even to each other, about the black fears that were beginning to beset them. They went on treating Mervyn (they thought) exactly as usual. And if Mr Redmayne, in his professional capacity, was keeping a closer, more desperate eye on the progress of this case than of any other he had handled, no one would have guessed it.

  And, in fact, official suspicion never veered in Mervyn’s direction. It turned out that in her short life Avril had embroiled herself in undertakings of such sordidness and outright criminality that her passing association with a pimply schoolboy working for A-levels went unnoticed. Blackmail—robbery—drug-peddling—her precocious little fingers had already been scorched by so many of the variegated fires of hell that suicide might have been the only way out for her. According to her foster-parents she had in fact threatened suicide on more than one occasion: but they had ignored it, imagining (so they claimed) that it was just a piece of teenage dramatics, one more trick for frightening people into giving her her own way. It
was true that plenty of unsavoury characters had good reason for wanting to get rid of her; but since the crime could be pinned on none of them, and since her body showed no signs of violence, suicide was finally the verdict reached.

  Mr Redmayne, of course, could guess what the outcome was likely to be long before it was publicly reached in court. Whatever his private suspicions, he knew, before anyone else could, that his son was likely to get away scot-free. And it was just then that Mervyn, knowing nothing of the (to him) favourable progress of the case, suddenly cracked. Overwhelmed, I suppose, by the long-drawn-out suspense of guilt and fear, he went to his father, blubbering like a baby, and confessed everything. Sobbing with sheer panic, he begged his father to save him; to use his position to suppress evidence, to cook alibis, to incriminate, if necessary, some other, innocent, person.

  He counted, of course, on the undoubted fact that he was the apple of his father’s eye. Unluckily he failed to take into account also the fact that his father was a professional man of high integrity. While it had been possible (just) for such a man to keep his suspicions to himself, it was not possible for him to do the same with a piece of actual, incontrovertible evidence, in the form of an unsolicited confession. His training, his conscience, his high standards of duty and responsibility made it utterly impossible for him to accede to the request: but on the other hand his love for his son made it impossible for him not to do so. There was only one thing he could so. Before he went out to the garage to take the only course left to him, he wrote a long, loving and courageous farewell to his wife. He begged her to understand; to forgive; to keep their son from temptation through all the long years that were ahead.

  *

  After fourteen years, the ink was already faded, and the paper was growing yellow. She showed it to me just as the day was changing into twilight through the well-fitted windows, and I had to hold it close to my face to see it. I skimmed through it quickly, guiltily, knowing that it had been meant for no eyes but hers. The other note—the public note that he left to be found by the police—was of course quite different; but it would seem to have been convincing to the authorities. He was, of course, an expert dealing with experts, and he used his expertise, at the very end, to ensure that his death should incriminate no one.

  Mrs Redmayne was trembling as I handed back the tragic, ageing document. She sat crouched in the gathering dusk, and little moans broke from her, like a child in the grip of a nightmare from which it cannot wake.

  “I have tried, I have!” she moaned at last. “All these long years I’ve tried to keep him from going out with girls. I’ve even tried to give him some sort of a happy life at home, to be a companion to him, to make his home a lively, jolly place. But how can I? It’s not natural, it’s not right. People think I’m a monster, keeping him tied to my apron strings like this; and so I am! I have to be. I have become a monster, Mrs Redmayne, so as to keep him safe!”

  I won’t say that I tried to comfort her, because what comfort was there to give? But I held her hand, and I let her talk on and on while the silvery square of the window seemed to grow brighter as the room grew darker. At last, timidly, and not knowing myself if what I suggested was cruel, irresponsible optimism, I suggested that Mervyn was a grown man now: might it not have been some ghastly teenage aberration which he had now outgrown?

  She looked at me out of the dimness with huge, tearless eyes.

  “Do you think I haven’t thought of that, Mrs Erskine? Do you think I haven’t wondered, every night and every morning, for fourteen years, whether I couldn’t let up, and let him lead a normal life? Do you think I haven’t been tempted to do so, in the long, boring evenings, and in the awful nights, when I lie in bed, alone, waiting for it to be morning? Do you think I never picture what my life could be like—even now, even at my age—if I was freed from all this? Do you think I couldn’t have married again—found happiness with some other man? Do you think I couldn’t have made another man love me—yes, even now! My legs are still good, aren’t they? My waist, my bust? Even my face is still something, because I have good eyes!”

  She swivelled towards me in the darkening room, displaying her remnants of beauty instinctively, like some cocky little bird; and though I could hardly see her face any more, I recognised the defiant little gesture of unquenchable femininity, and knew that she had spoken the truth. She was an attractive little thing, even now. She could have had lovers—a husband—a proper home. For her son’s safety, she had sacrificed it all.

  “Don’t you understand?”—she turned on me as if my silence had betokened disagreement—“Of course I know that Mervyn may have changed! Of course I realise that he may be quite—normal—by now. He may. But—don’t you see?—I can’t know! I could only know by taking the risk. By letting some lovely young girl take the risk….”

  She stopped. Somewhere, out in that dark, winter night, beyond the range of all our plans and pleadings, Mervyn and Sarah were together. Whatever the risk was, it was being taken now, by my own daughter. The awful, helpless terror of it lapped against my consciousness, and was repelled by an almost physical act of rejection. It couldn’t be … it couldn’t … in a minute now something would happen to show that it was all right … that my arrogant, patronising lies and bogus messages had after all done no harm to anyone. Good intentions such as mine just couldn’t lead to utter, irreversible tragedy. Except that of course they could; just like other people’s good intentions.

  The telephone screamed out into the silent room, and we both leaped to our feet. Even though we had consciously and intently been waiting for just this sound, the shock was beyond description. I snatched up the receiver, and for a few moments I not only couldn’t speak, I also couldn’t hear. A great wall of fear seemed to stand between my senses and the outside world.

  “Mummy? Is that you, Mummy? You sound so funny. Yes, of course it’s me—it’s Sarah. What is it? Is something the matter?”

  She sounded quite anxious, and I nearly screamed with hysterical laughter into the telephone. That she should be feeling anxious about me!

  “No—nothing, darling,—everything’s all right,” I managed to gasp. My heart was beating so loud with relief that it was like trying to talk against an electric drill. “Then what is it?” I heard her saying. “We’ve just been getting millions of messages, from absolutely everybody, that you’ve been trying to get hold of us.”

  We were worried, I explained, because we’d heard that they hadn’t been at the hotel last night. Sarah hastened to explain it all. The car had broken down; they’d got to Bristol very late; they’d tried to ring the hotel, but no one was on duty, so they’d stayed in a funny little place near the station. Yes, Mervyn’s interview had gone off all right; and yes, they were having a lovely time. “But what’s the matter, Mummy? Why all these frantic telephone messages? Is Daddy all right? And Janice?”

  “Yes—yes, they’re fine!” I assured her. “But listen, Sarah. I know you’ll say I’m insane, but I want you to come home now. Tonight. I can’t explain—not over the telephone. But it’s terribly important. Please believe me.”

  I sounded just like Mrs Redmayne on all those many, many occasions when I had so scornfully listened to her pleading with her child. I recognised in my voice the same note of hopeless apology, of guilty, frantic determination. Sarah must have recognised it, too.

  “Mummy,” she said gently. “Has Mervyn’s mother been talking to you? About Mervyn?”

  “Yes! She has, she has!” I cried gratefully. “She’s told me—Oh, Sarah, I can’t tell you now, but you must leave him at once! Immediately! You must come home by train …!”

  “You mean,” the calm young voice sounded across all those miles of empty winter sky. “You mean she’s told you about him having murdered that girl? But I know about that, Mummy. I’ve known about it for days. He told me. Ages ago.”

  CHAPTER XIX

  “CLARE ALWAYS SEEMED so balanced and sensible on the surface; but neurotics are often like that
.”

  “Clare talks about letting children lead their own lives, but when it comes to the crunch she’s as possessive as they come!”

  “Clare’s just that age, you know, for being jealous of her daughter’s attractiveness. Unconsciously, of course….”

  “Clare and Ralph must be breaking up…. No happily married woman would set out to destroy her daughter’s happiness like that….”

  “Clare’s turning into one of those vampire mothers …!”

  “She’s possessive …!”

  “Insecure …!”

  “Guilt-ridden …!”

  “Frustrated …!”

  The voices floated and mumbled in through the closed kitchen window; but they were not real voices. The neighbours didn’t know, yet, that Sarah’s engagement was to be broken off yet again, this time forcibly, by me. They didn’t know because it hadn’t happened yet. It couldn’t happen until I had seen Sarah, and talked to her, and so the gossip in the neighbourhood couldn’t possibly have already begun. But this is what I always do when disaster threatens: I begin hearing in my head the things the neighbours are going to say. I do it at once, the very first thing, before I even burst into tears; and I often wonder whether it is just me, or whether other women are the same.

  And at the same time, swifter than any computer, I am already sorting the censorious remarks, analysing them, preparing my defences against them in every detail, down to the last nonchalant little laugh.

  My defence in this case must, of course, be something other than the truth. No one—except Sarah herself—must ever know the real reason for my sudden forbidding of the marriage; for my sudden, urgent pleas to Ralph to forbid it too. My story must not incriminate Mervyn; it must cause as little humiliation as possible to Sarah; it must also—(for one’s own selfishness is something that must always be allowed for and treated with respect in making serious plans, otherwise it will assuredly bring the whole thing crashing to the ground while one is not looking)—the story must also, therefore, leave me with my reputation as an enlightened mother moderately untarnished.