by Weldon, Fay
Behind Gemma was the door. Before her was her love, whose hands had rested on her naked breasts, and gently fingered her navel – that untidy hole, linking us back, and back, through our mothers, to the beginning of mammal life.
Gemma stepped forward; how could she not. Thus Mr First, earlier, had hurled himself upon the rocks. So did Gemma now. Mr Fox, Mr First! One or the other! What did it matter? What is a murderer but a man who makes the world safe for his own?
And she was his own. Yes, she was.
‘I want to make a coleslaw for supper,’ said Mr Fox. ‘I need someone to shred the cabbage, paper-thin. Such a boring task! I shall let you mix the salad, Gemma, as your reward. It must always be done with the hands, so as not to bruise the leaf tissues unnecessarily. Let me see your hands, Gemma. A salad can’t be mixed with ringed hands. Both suffer. Gold and silver tarnish in the vinaigrette; the salad becomes tainted.’
Gemma held out her left hand. Mr Fox smiled, gazed, lifted it to his lips; kissed the rings and not her fingers. Then he tried to remove them, with his own chilled, accustomed fingers. He failed.
Mr Fox’s eyes narrowed: his breath expelled.
Marion uttered a little cry, and ran out of the door. Gemma heard her footsteps running down the stairs to safety, running away, avoiding her destiny. Treacherous Marion! False friend.
But oh, Mr Fox, Gemma loves you. Pierce her with knives, or with your own body: it is all the same. Make your mark upon her; carry her off towards death, towards life: it is all the same. What’s done cannot be undone, in this world or the next. A long-lost spirit gazes at her, through familiar eyes. You have known each other through all eternity. Mr Fox and Gemma. Hand in hand through the corridors of heaven and hell.
‘Something so dreadful happened,’ said Gemma, ‘I wasn’t going to show you until I’d got it off. I thought you might be angry. You told me not to wear Queen Katharine’s ring where Mr First could see it, but of course now he has and we all have to be terribly careful, because he’s quite mad and murdered his sister, and I’m afraid he’ll murder all of us. We must go to the police at once.’
‘Come upstairs,’ said Mr Fox, ‘and watch me make the perfect vinaigrette. Be cool, be cool, my dear. If you accuse people of murder, do it with some style. Jokingly, I think would be appropriate, though I must say I haven’t had much practice. Where did you find the ring?’
‘On a finger.’
‘What, with no hand attached?’
‘A wandering finger,’ Gemma volunteered, following Mr Fox up the iron staircase.
If one tripped: if one fell? But girls in love do not fall. They are protected by magic.
‘That’s better,’ said Mr Fox. ‘There’s the beginning of a conversation with some style. So Marion’s dream was true?’
‘Yes.’
‘I am glad I have you safe up here,’ said Mr Fox, shutting the door behind them. ‘I must look after my rings. I can’t possibly let you go, my beautiful Gemma.’
‘Mr Fox, we have to do something about Mr First. If he killed his sister.’
‘Mr First is my partner. I’m sure a man’s entitled to kill his own sister. It’s not as if she was a perfect stranger.’
‘Stop teasing me!’
‘When you lift your hands to your head like that, you give me an idea. One could have a kind of golden chain, on the upper arms. A lacing. It would do well in Germany. Dearest Gemma, if you could just remove your blouse and bra while I find the calipers.’
Obediently, Gemma did so.
‘Gemma, look at yourself in the mirror. A skirt is a most unsightly garment while worn with nothing else. You should know that by now. Do your boy-friends teach you nothing?’
‘I have no boy-friends.’
‘Poor Gemma. All alone in the world.’
‘Yes.’
‘No one to miss you?’
‘Marion and her family would.’
Mr Fox frowned. Mr Fox’s frown cleared. Presumably he had thought of a way round that. Mr Fox measured Gemma’s upper arms. She had, obligingly, removed all her clothes. Gemma, you are too bold!
Then Mr Fox measured Gemma’s neck, and around it placed a heavy gold collar, on which was embossed a frieze of artistic if orgiastic couplings.
‘I don’t care for it myself,’ he said. ‘Too heavy and too uncomfortable, I imagine.’
‘Yes. It digs me in the back.’
Mr Fox stepped forward to take it off.
‘Oh dear,’ said Mr Fox. ‘The clasp seems to have wedged in some way. How on earth am I going to get that off?’
Where does one thing stop and another start? Where does desire end and murder begin?
Poor Mr Fox, with his sad, cold eyes, and his lost and horrible world. Where are his clients now? Dead and gone, early to their end from drugs, excess, and malnutrition; or washed away by the rising tides of necessity, of mortgages, children, boredom. Mr Fox, who could not be content with just killing himself, took out an axe; a pretty axe, its handle made of pink lacy plastic, but its blade pure shining steel.
‘Mr Fox,’ wailed Gemma. ‘My Mr Fox.’
‘Don’t wail,’ said Mr Fox, ‘it isn’t a pretty sound. The cabbage leaves will wither from shock. They have been flown in from Algeria. You have a soft and lovely voice. Don’t abuse it.’
‘But you killed Mr First’s sister. She got your ring stuck on her finger.’
‘She shouldn’t have eaten so much. It was her own fault. Nor should you. I did warn you, Gemma.’
‘It’s not a sin to be fat. Not a crime punishable by death.’
‘Yes it is.’
And Mr Fox advanced like some jungle beast on Gemma, crouching white, naked and glittering beneath a gently waving palm tree. Gemma shrieked, and ran to the door and tugged and tugged, and tugged again and this time it opened, and running down the stairs, no longer protected by love – for Mr Fox was clearly mad, and who can love a madman, what does that make of oneself? – tripped and fell, over the edge and round and down, and caught her necklet in a banister as she fell, and at the bottom lay helpless, unable to move, her left arm outstretched, and the rings glinting on them, in their marriage, or was it their sisterhood, of red and white. Rose Red and Snow White: and their friend, or was he their enemy, the bear? Sent by their mother, alarmed on their account, shuffling out into the snow, gruffly growling, sorrowful.
Mr First, Hamish, fumbling, kindly, dangerous beast. Mr Fox, predator, sharp with his teeth, his knives, his smile, wounding, piercing with his you-know-what –
Gemma, you should not have loved Mr Fox, now dancing on light feet down towards you, round and round, pretty lacy axe high in his hand –
‘I would have preferred to love you to death,’ says Mr Fox, ‘but want must be my master!’
15
‘I missed the birthday cake,’ says Hamish, coming into the tea room. ‘Why did no one tell me? Where is everyone?’
‘Gone,’ says Gemma, happily. ‘Victor went off with Janice and Wendy. Wendy has a boy-friend now. Fancy that!’
‘And that leaves Elsa with us.’ Hamish cut himself a slice of birthday cake. ‘I hope you sang Happy Birthday.’
‘Of course.’
‘What a delightful cake. You must let Gemma teach you to cook, Elsa.’
Elsa looks from Hamish to Gemma. A little seed of anger roots, sprouts, swells, driving out grief.
‘I hope he didn’t take the library ladder,’ says Hamish.
‘I’m afraid he did.’
‘A man of direct action,’ says Hamish sadly. ‘One has to admire it.’
‘You’ll instruct your solicitors?’
‘Of course.’
‘They’re better than his?’
‘Naturally.’
‘Good. I’m afraid he hasn’t behaved very well to Elsa. Her prince turned out to be a positive toad. Didn’t he, Elsa?’
Still Elsa does not reply.
‘Sit down quietly, Hamish. I’m just finishing my story. Of how I met you,
my dear.’
‘I hope it’s true.’
‘It will do.’
And Gemma continues.
While Mr Fox pursued Gemma with his lacy axe, Marion went in search of help. She rang her father at his office. ‘Dad! It’s Marion. Mr Fox is murdering Gemma.’
‘Speak to your mother.’ Marion’s dad handed his wife the telephone. Mrs Ramsbottle often visited her husband’s office: together they would tour travel agents, in search of new brochures.
‘Mum, Mr Fox is going to murder Gemma.’
‘You naughty girl! You’ll be in prison for libel if you go on like this.’
But something stirred in Marion’s mum’s mind. Floating on top of the scented blue water in the toilet bowl this morning – what? Flush, and flush, but still it floated. Hideous, horrible, this vindication of their daughter.
Marion’s mum and dad came round in a taxi, and at the bottom of the Fox and First building found an agitated Mr First trying to summon the lift, with Marion beside him.
‘He’s left the lift doors open,’ said Marion. ‘He sometimes does that. As a joke.’
‘No joke,’ said Mr First. ‘He was in no joking mood. Such genius! Such tragedy! We’ll have to walk. Quick, quick!’
So while Mr Fox raised his lacy axe above poor Gemma’s head, and she lay helpless, rescue was on its way.
Up and up; round and round. Would it come in time? Or if it came, would it be effective? Could the imperfect unison of such imperfect parts – Mr First, Marion, Marion’s mum and dad – contain sufficient goodness to combat Mr Fox’s concentrated villainy?
Up and up. Round and round.
‘Just one more flight,’ begged Mr First, bringing up the rear.
‘I’m afraid she’s in great danger. I never thought, never dreamt –’ but he needs all this breath to make his thin legs work: and Marion’s mother, likewise, to make her fat ones move.
‘Like being back in the Dolomites,’ she panted. ‘Just the same feeling in the back of the legs. It will be hell tomorrow. Why are you going so fast, Mr First? He’s not really going to murder her, is he? It’s just Marion and her tales again. Such a nice man, Mr Fox. Always such a charming smile and such clean teeth. You ought to clean your teeth more, Marion, you might have more success with the boys.’
‘I clean them twice a day, mum. I can hardly take a toothbrush to the office.’
‘I’m sure Gemma does.’
‘Well, look at Gemma now!’
Look indeed.
Down came the axe on the third finger of Gemma’s left hand: she had been quite right; never again would the hand be fit for the ordinary tasks of everyday life.
It hardly hurt; it hardly bled. Mr Fox removed the rings, slipped them on his own fingers. How easily they fitted; lubricated as they were by blood.
‘You see,’ he cried. ‘A nice slim finger! If I put on a pound in weight I go for a week to the gym and lose five. That’s self-discipline, Gemma. You should have developed it. Now as to the neck, that may be more difficult!’
He bent to investigate the golden collar: but his fingers travelled down her body, exploring. Gemma fainted, and just as well. She had some memory, afterwards, of a sudden personal pain, felt as the loss of her finger still was not, but likewise hazed by shock; and of looking up and seeing Mr Fox’s eyes above her, close and far, close and far, red and narrow with the exercise of his lust, or love, or whatever it was: and in her own heart, her own body welling up, the ineradicable stubborness of love, so that she cried out aloud, from fear and joy, pain and pleasure mixed.
Now die, Gemma. That’s all. That’s enough. That’s what it was all about.
‘Up you go!’ cried Marion’s dad, pushing his wife from behind. ‘Let’s just hurry, shall we? Let’s be on the safe side! I, too, found a human finger floating in the loo this morning. You could flush the flush but it wouldn’t go down. You know what some objects are like – something to do with specific density, I believe. I didn’t like to tell you then, but I’m telling you now. Come on, old dear. Pretend you’re in an avalanche run and it’s just begun to snow –’
And the noisy, clattery, ridiculous party arrived on the landing, to find the fire door locked and entrance to the Fox and First showrooms barred.
‘We keep it locked,’ said Mr First faintly, ‘in case of burglars.’
‘I don’t want to go in,’ shrieked poor Marion. ‘I don’t want to see. Don’t you understand everybody, I’ve had enough?’
But they didn’t, couldn’t, never would understand.
‘The neck will have to go,’ said Mr Fox. ‘No other way. Sorry about that. I was carried away.’
Marion’s father opened the little leather case – bought in the Algarve – which he referred to jokingly as his ‘in case case’ and took out a bent piece of wire and a plastic plaque with which he quickly and simply picked the lock.
The wind blew in through the shattered glass and fluffed the tail of the dead seagull, and spattered water from the fountain across Gemma’s face.
Mr Fox stayed his hand; and withheld the axe while he admired the effect.
‘The fountain plays a rainbow of grief across your face, poor Gemma. If I could only make a necklace of your tears, or of my own –’
Mr Fox laid down his axe and knelt beside Gemma’s unconscious form; he tried, indeed he did, to find another way of removing the collar without cutting the neck, and it is to his credit that he did so. But finding none, he again picked up the axe –
‘None of that rough stuff,’ said Marion’s father, behind Mr Fox’s back, and Mr Fox turned, and paled, and his hand sank down, and Mr First removed the axe, while Marion and her mother hurried to Gemma’s side.
‘My dear Gemma,’ said Mr First, distraught. ‘I told you not to leave your desk. I knew that staircase was a deathtrap. Now see what you’ve done! And Leon, is there no controlling you?’
Gemma moaned, and stirred, and moaned again, feeling pain now, in her back and in her finger.
‘I can’t move,’ said Gemma, and so it seemed.
‘I must ring the police,’ said Mr First. ‘You understand that, Leon?’
‘I understand very well. The barbarian hordes have arrived. The package tourists. It is time for me to depart. You won’t have a business left, you know that. You can’t survive without me. It’s the end of Fox and First.’
‘It’s the end anyhow,’ said Mr First. ‘We couldn’t really have mass produced that ring. There isn’t a market for it. Ordinary people remain respectable as they ever did: all this is surface froth. The bottom’s dropping out of the erotic jewellery market. After the surge, the recession. Time I was getting out of Carnaby Street and into something more serious. More natural. There’s going to be a swing back to wholesomeness, mark my words.’
‘Then ring the police,’ said Mr Fox. ‘Let them come for me with dogs and sirens. I wish I could hang. A glorious barbarity! But even that is not allowed. Now begins the whole dreary business of paper mugs and instant coffee, probation officers, head-shrinkers, social workers, open prisons, and the smell of boiled cabbage for ever and ever – I knew it would come to it in the end.’
Mr First rang the police. Mr Fox peered at Gemma.
‘You are a silly girl, Gemma. There was no need to run away. I was only joking. We could have been happy together. When you’d been trained, of course.’
Mr First finished his call. He raised Gemma’s head and pressed his dry lips to her soft ones. Marion cried out in grief.
‘Don’t they make a lovely picture!’ said Marion’s mum, head on one side. ‘Gemma and her millionaire. It’s what she deserves, I’m sure.’
Gemma’s cool, sad voice stops.
‘Have you finished?’ enquires Hamish, coldly.
Elsa, looking through the french windows, can see the small figures of Johnnie and Annie clearing the debris of the front gate, as of the manner born. Annie sweeps with a wide broom, patiently. Johnnie raises the splintered blocks and beams shoulde
r high and tosses them to the side of the drive. The weight is as illusory as that of the chunks of foam and balsa that bounce upon the crowds in films of earthquake and tornado.
Goodbye, Victor. Shattering barriers which scarcely existed, in the final impulse of familial generosity.
‘And that’s the end?’ asks Elsa, brightly, bravely.
‘Not quite,’ says Gemma, fingering her pendant. ‘When I woke in the ambulance Hamish was sitting next to me. He asked me to marry him and I said yes. Well, for a girl without working legs and a ring finger missing, who’d just been raped, it seemed a good offer. As good as any I was likely to get.’
Hamish’s grey face is greyer yet with pain. I could make him happy, thinks Elsa, but I could never make him suffer. What good am I to him? To anyone?
Hamish reaches forward and tugs the pendant out of Gemma’s fingers.
‘Horrible cheap thing,’ he says. ‘Why do you wear it? You only do it to annoy.’
He uses so much force that the chain cuts into Gemma’s neck; she cries out in pain and anger; the chain snaps. The pendant falls.
‘See what you’ve done?’ she weeps. ‘My mother’s pendant.’
‘Don’t believe a word Gemma says, Elsa,’ says Hamish. ‘The only truth in it all is that she came down to London as a young girl and got a job modelling jewellery at Fox and First. Mr Fox was a homosexual, and later did his boy-friend to death in a rather horrible way and had to be restrained in Broadmoor, which played on my poor wife’s mind. And my unfortunate sister fell accidentally from the window: and it’s true the other typist, Marion, was somewhat disturbed and stole one of the rings. We did not press charges. And that’s all.’
‘But my finger! How do you explain my poor hand?’
‘You caught your finger in the lift door. It had to be amputated. I proposed to you in the ambulance: so much is true. You loved me then: we loved each other. The present is bad enough, without you blackening our past as well.’
‘And my legs? What about my legs?’
