Stillwater

by Maynard Sims

“You should have called the police,” Beth said.

  Maggie nodded. “Yes, I probably should have. But Bernard begged me not to take it further, and I, like a fool, agreed not to. But I knew I couldn’t share a house with the bitch any longer. And when Bernard refused to even reprimand her I knew my marriage was over. I made arrangements with a cousin in Devon to stay with her for a while. I left the next day.” Maggie glanced at her watch. “Anyway, there you have it in all its gory details. And now I’d better go. I just thought it was only right that you should know what exactly took place here. Maybe it will help you. I don’t know. But you realize you can’t stay here. Jessica won’t stop until she drives you mad…or worse.”

  “Yes, I’m beginning to realize that.”

  The sun was starting to drop in the sky, casting an orange glow over the tops of the trees. “You’re not driving back home tonight, are you?”

  “Not tonight. I’ve booked a room at a pub in town. I’ll travel back down there tomorrow.” She got to her feet. “Thanks for listening. I’ve had that bottled up for years, with no one to tell it to, or rather no one who would really believe what an evil bitch Jessica actually was. People would see her beautiful face and believe that beauty continued below the surface. It didn’t. Goodbye, Beth…and if you happen to see Bernard, I’d rather you didn’t tell him I’ve been to see you. It will open too many old wounds.”

  “I’ll keep it to myself,” Beth said.

  “You know what they say, least said, soonest mended. Jessica’s death affected him badly. It broke him. He won’t want all this dredged up again and he won’t thank me for doing so. I suppose in my heart of hearts I still love him. And we’ve managed to build an accord. It’s taken a few years but it kind of works now.”

  “I won’t say anything.”

  Maggie squeezed her hand. “No,” she said. “You’re a good person, I can see that. It’s probably why Jessica hates you so much.”

  Beth sat on the veranda, and closed her eyes. There was a chill to the evening air, but she had no desire to go inside. She pulled out her phone, and dialed a number.

  The phone on the other end rang a dozen times before James answered it.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s me,” she said.

  “What do you want, Beth?” he said, his voice cold and dismissive.

  “I owe you an apology.”

  “Fine.” And then silence.

  “No, James. Please don’t hang up. I have to explain. Can I see you?”

  “Half an hour.” The line went dead.

  A sob broke in her throat. What did you expect? she thought. That he’d just forget everything you said? That he’d welcome you back with open arms?

  By the time his car pulled into the lane, the sun was dying in the sky, and she was shivering.

  He climbed out of the car unsmiling, and approached the veranda, hands in pockets. “It’s getting cold. Why aren’t you inside?”

  “I couldn’t. Not by myself.”

  “What’s happened?”

  She held her bandaged arms up for him to see. “Teddy attacked me.”

  The unsmiling face deepened into a frown. “I thought your cat was dead.”

  “So did I. He is now—in the middle of the lounge. James, I’ve been such a fool,” she said.

  He came onto the veranda, and laid his hand over hers. “At least let me fetch you a blanket. You’re risking hypothermia sitting out her without a coat.”

  “In the wardrobe. In the bedroom.”

  He returned quickly, and draped a brown fleece over her shoulders.

  She gathered it around her and gave him a wan smile. “Thanks.”

  He didn’t smile back.

  “About earlier, James. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. I know now you never had a relationship with Jessica.”

  He sat down on the swing seat. “What brought you to that conclusion?”

  “I had a visitor this afternoon. She opened my eyes to a lot of things, and what she told me made realize I’d been wrong. Misguided in just about everything concerning Stillwater.”

  “And who was this mysterious visitor who lifted the blinkers from your eyes?”

  “Dolores Franklin,” she said. “Although she goes by the name of Maggie O’Donnell these days.”

  James rocked slightly in the seat, as if trying hard to take in this new piece of information. Finally he shook his head. “I won’t ask why. I’m sure she has her reasons. What on earth prompted her to come and see you?”

  “She spoke to Bernard Franklin. She came here to set the record straight.”

  “And it sounds like she succeeded.”

  “It’s Jessica, James. It’s been Jessica all along. She’s out to destroy me, just as she destroyed everything good in her life. Maggie…Dolores, described her as pure evil. And I believe her.”

  “It doesn’t sound like the Jessica I knew,” he said.

  “And she fooled you, just as she fooled everyone else. I’m sorry, I know you don’t want to hear this, but she was using you as a stick with which to beat Carl Page. He was the one she was in a relationship with. Though from how it was described it seemed a fairly toxic one.” She shuddered.

  “Isn’t the blanket helping?”

  “I’m warm now. It’s not that. I think it’s just a reaction to the day. What with Mirri, Teddy and everything else, I’m not sure I can take much more. I’m trembling inside, deep inside.”

  “Then we’ll have to get you away from here. You’re not staying here the night. You can come back with me to my place and stay over.”

  She shook her head. “I couldn’t, James. Not after the way I treated you today.”

  He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. “It’s forgotten,” he said gently. “You’ve been to hell and back. You’re not spending the night alone. Certainly not here.”

  She smiled. “Thank you. I’ll need to pack an overnight bag. Will you come inside with me and wait ’til I’m ready?”

  “Of course. And we’ll stop off for a Chinese on the way back, I haven’t eaten and I’ll bet you haven’t either.”

  “It never occurred to me, but now you mention it…”

  “Come on. Lead the way.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “I’ll only be a few moments,” Beth said, as she wheeled herself into the bedroom.

  James sat down on one of the chesterfields. “No rush,” he said.

  In the bedroom Beth reached down, and pulled a small suitcase out from under the bed and flipped it open. Then she went across to the dressing table, and started opening drawers, pulling out the things she needed, tossing them into the waiting case.

  She didn’t notice the bedroom door start to close. But she heard the click of the latch as it shut.

  She froze, one hand still clutching a cotton T-shirt. Her breath began to steam in front of her face, as the temperature in the room started to plummet. It was suddenly very cold in the room.

  She was facing the wall. “Hello, Jessica,” she said, without turning around. She let the T-shirt drop back into the drawer. Slowly she turned her chair a full 180 degrees.

  Jessica stood just inside the room, the closed door behind her.

  She was wearing a plain white shift dress; her long hair was parted demurely in the center, and hung to each side of her pale face. But the dark eyes in the face were fierce. They fixed Beth with a penetrating, hostile gaze. Jessica’s lips looked dry and cracked. When they parted, the voice that issued from them sounded distant and strained.

  “He’s mine,” she said. “Jimmy’s mine.”

  Beth shook her head. “No, Jessica. He was never yours. He was just another person to use, like so many you used in your sad and pathetic life.” She had no idea where this sudden attack of bravery was coming from.

  Something flared
in Jessica’s eyes, and she hissed at Beth, like a cat.

  Behind her, the door started to open as James made his way into the room.

  “Beth is everything all right?”

  Jessica glanced behind her, and made a downward thrust with her arm, slamming the door shut, knocking James back into the lounge. As the door shut, there was a loud click as the mortise lock snapped into its housing. Jessica smiled.

  “He’s such an innocent.”

  “I’m not afraid, Jessica.” Beth said. “Not anymore. I know the truth about you.” She realized she was gripping the arms of her chair, her fingernails digging into the soft vinyl. She relaxed her hands, and took a breath to relax the rest of her body.

  Jessica stood watching her, eyes still burning furiously in an otherwise impassive face. She raised her other hand, and Beth’s wheelchair lurched backwards, crashing into the dressing table, knocking the wind from her lungs.

  “You know nothing,” Jessica said. “You pathetic cripple.”

  “At least it’s only my body that’s crippled,” Beth gasped. “Not my mind. Unlike yours.”

  Jessica raised her hand again, and the wheelchair shot forward, colliding with the bed and throwing Beth out of the chair, half onto the bed and half onto the floor. Her fingers grasped the covers, and she pulled herself onto the bed, her gaze never leaving Jessica’s face.

  “Tell me, Jessica, what was it like to go through life, unloved and incapable of loving anyone but yourself?”

  “Bitch! What do you know?”

  “I know you’re emotionally stunted. There’s something missing in you, Jess. Something that makes you more crippled than me.”

  Something flickered on the impassive face. Uncertainty?

  “My father loved me. And I loved him. Only him,” Jessica said.

  Beth shifted on the bed, hauling her useless legs up onto the mattress, and turning her entire body until she was facing Jessica. “Is that why you had to get rid of Dolores? Couldn’t you bear to compete with her for his affection, for his love?”

  “He never loved her. Not like he loved me,” Jessica spat.

  “Is that what you told yourself?”

  Again the uncertainty flickered in Jessica’s eyes.

  “The truth, Jessica. Face the truth,” Beth said, as calmly as she could, even though her heart was beating like a trip hammer, echoed by the sound of James pounding on the bedroom door. “Your father loved Dolores. She was the love of his life. You were just a pathetic also-ran.”

  A scent bottle launched itself from the dressing table, and sailed across the room missing Beth’s head by a centimeter, smashing against the headboard, showering her with broken glass and perfume.

  Beth flicked glass away from her face, gagging at the intensely sweet smell of the perfume. “The truth,” she said again. “Face the truth, Jessica!”

  For a moment the hostility faded from Jessica eyes, to be replaced by more uncertainty and then confusion. “No,” she whispered. “No.”

  Suddenly Beth’s mind was filled with images.

  A merry-go-round and a four-year-old Jessica perched on a gaily-colored horse, giggling with delight, while a young Bernard Franklin looked on adoringly. Jessica winning her first swimming cup at six years of age, hoisted onto the shoulders of a proud and jubilant father, and paraded around the pool, holding the cup aloft. Jessica running across a field of long grass, being chased by Bernard, laughing panting, and finally bringing his daughter to the ground with a rugby tackle, leaving them both breathless, and Jessica squealing with glee.

  A darkened bedroom, with a twelve-year-old Jessica shivering under the covers. And then the covers being pulled back and Bernard Franklin sliding into the bed beside her, wrapping her in his arms, warming her before tentatively stroking her nascent breasts and kissing her, his tongue probing the soft interior of her mouth.

  The picture in Beth’s mind switched. She was at Stillwater Lake, standing in the shadow of a giant oak, and watching as a seminaked couple made love. The couple, a nubile Jessica opening herself up to the thrusting, panting attentions of Carl Page. A cry of rage and Bernard Franklin burst from the trees, his face a twisted mask of anger as he dragged a startled Page from his daughter, bringing his fist smashing down into the boy’s face, knocking him senseless.

  Bernard Franklin towered above Jessica, screaming at her, “Slut! Whore!” He reached down, grabbed her by the hair, yanked her to her feet and hauled her across to the water’s edge. With a cry he threw her into the lake. Jessica struck out, swimming for all she was worth, trying to escape her father’s rage. Giving a bull-like roar Bernard plunged into the lake after her, catching her within a few yards and forcing her head beneath the water. For a second she struggled, and surfaced before he grabbed her and forced her under the water again, this time for an age, until her legs stopped kicking, and she floated away from him.

  Breathless and sobbing Bernard Franklin staggered from the lake, and collapsed on the shore, while his drowned daughter’s body floated to the shallows, and lay there facedown in the water.

  The images receded. Beth was in the room lying on the bed, staring at Jessica, whose face was a mask of realization and pain. She mouthed the word no, and then brackish water spilled out from her mouth, over her lips and down the front of her dress, staining the white cotton green. Beauty was sucked from her face, as her cheeks caved in, shrinking back over her skull, leaving deep dark hollows. Above the hollows her eyes started to dry and shrink, leaving them looking like glittering coal-black pebbles.

  The rest of her body was decaying; the skin of her arms and hands was shriveling, turning her arms into twigs, and her fingers into twisted claws.

  “No!” Jessica shouted, as her legs snapped, and she collapsed to the floor. For a moment she lay there in a heap, before the white cotton shift dress billowed softly, and settled over a body that was rapidly liquefying into pool of muddy green sludge.

  The door finally burst open, and James stood there, panting and rubbing his shoulder.

  “Are you okay?”

  On the bed Beth lay back onto the pillow, and closed her eyes. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’m fine.”

  James looked down at the green pool that was becoming thinner, more watery and was slowly soaking into the floorboards.

  He picked up the white shift dress, holding it reverently in his hands. “She always seemed so sad.”

  “I can tell you why,” Beth said. “Not yet, though.”

  James righted the wheelchair and wheeled it across to the edge of the bed. “I think we need to get going.”

  Beth slid across the covers until her legs dangled over the chair. “This place won’t let her sleep.”

  James helped her into the wheelchair. “Let’s get you out of here,” he said.

  She nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Please.”

  Epilogue

  Six months later

  The large yellow JCB digger raised its clawlike arm and brought it crashing down through the roof of the house, sending tiles flying into the air. It looked as if birds were taking flight. The operator adjusted some levers in his cab, and the claw rose and fell again, into the hole that had been made, but this time hooking over the front wall of the house and pulling it outward. The wall collapsed in an explosion of crumbling brickwork.

  The noise was extraordinary, as bricks fell and windows shattered. It was like a primeval beast exacting revenge on an ancient enemy. Noisy, remorseless and final.

  Beth pressed her hands over her ears, feeling the noise as an almost physical pain.

  James stood behind her, his hand resting reassuringly on her shoulder.

  “You didn’t have to come here today,” he said.

  She laid her hand on his, squeezing softly. “I had to come. I had to be sure it was finally coming down.”

  Edward Falmer appeared at the
ir side. “Well, an exciting day. Building work starts once they’ve cleared the site. The Stillwater Development,” he said, a note of triumph in his voice. “I never thought I’d see the day. Good old Bernard Franklin.”

  Beth winced. “Congratulations,” she said. “James tells me that most of the houses are presold off plan.”

  “Indeed they are. Though I must admit I was surprised when James said you wouldn’t be going in for one of them. I’d have thought a place here would have been perfect for you two.”

  “We’re happy with the house we have,” James said. “And you never know, we might not be staying there too long. Beth’s TV series in the States seems to be a ratings success.”

  “And the money is going to start pouring in,” Falmer said, with a hint of envy. “You lucky buggers. You’re not thinking of moving out there, are you Beth? Falmer and Bartlett needs both James and I for it to work. I wouldn’t want to lose him.”

  Beth smiled at the old man. “No,” she said. “I think you’re safe enough. I’ve no plans to leave the country. But we might buy somewhere bigger—still in the area though.” She had come to feel a bond with the general location, though her pleasure at the destruction of the house was complete.

  Falmer smiled. “Good, good. And thanks once again for the invitation to your wedding. I should think you’re up to your ears in preparations.”

  “I’m coping,” Beth said, and squeezed James’s hand harder.

  “It’s going well,” James said. “Just the flowers to arrange. Isn’t that right, Beth?”

  Beth rolled her eyes, as if to say, men! “Yes, nearly there…apart from cake, flowers, dress. Nearly there.” Then she laughed. “I’m not nearly as stressed as that sounds. Honestly.”

  “Well, I’m looking forward to it,” Falmer said. “So is the wife. She doesn’t often get the chance to buy a new hat. It’s just the excuse she needed.”

  A few yards away the Lathams watched the demolition with ill-concealed delight. Arthur Latham caught Beth’s eye, and gave her a mock-salute; Gwen just watched the destruction. She was smiling. There was a smugness about her stance that wasn’t attractive.