With No Crying

by Celia Fremlin

  “Watching the poor kid like a cat watching a mouse,” he’d accused; and, by God, this night he was going to learn more about cats than he’d ever dreamed of; and about mice too, and about the distinguishing marks by which you can tell which is which…

  In the terrible darkness she gave a low laugh.

  “He was so appalled, poor man, he could hardly bring himself to say your name! But it doesn’t matter, does it, dear, because after this you’ll never see him again—” And then, after a tiny pause, “They won’t let you.”

  They? Who was “they”? Momentarily startled out of her silent despair Miranda struggled to frame her question, but in that instant, and completely without warning, Iris switched on the bedside light. For just one second Miranda’s white, shamed face was revealed, blinking helplessly under the pitiless illumination; then, with a swift, small convulsion of her whole body, she twisted out of sight under the bedclothes, only her humped shoulders marking the spot.

  Iris waited, quietly and without impatience, for what she knew must happen next; and sure enough, presently, muffled under layer upon layer of blankets, there came a voice as from the Confessional, babbling forth its crimes and its muddled penitence.

  “I—I’m sorry, Iris! Deceiving you all like that—it was horrible—dreadful! I just can’t tell you how terribly terribly sorry I am. I mean, it was awful of me, I know it was, but somehow there seemed to be no way out—can you understand? I mean, with all of you being so kind, and taking me in specially because I was pregnant—and—you know! The things Tim said—and him being so sweet to me, and so concerned—and the knitting, and everything; how could I tell her when she’d already begun decreasing for the neck …! Oh, Iris, I didn’t know what to do, and the nicer you all were to me the worse it got! And then, you know”—here the humped blankets shuddered in the circle of light, and a low choking sound came from deep within, the rumblings of uncontrollable sobbing—“you know, Iris, I’d been so unhappy! Before I ever came here, I mean—at home—so terribly unhappy, that’s why I ran away. Because I had been pregnant, you know, really and truly pregnant, but I—I—lost it! It’s so awful, when that happens—so dreadfully, impossibly awful, I don’t know how to explain! The mad, terrible feelings you get—Oh, Iris, if you only knew…!”

  “I do know, actually,” Iris remarked quietly. “I know because I’ve had those feelings too, exactly the same. I’ve had an abortion too, you know, just like you have, the only difference being that I didn’t use it to wreck everything around me; to destroy my family, to betray my friends, to abuse their hospitality. Nor did I regard it as a good and sufficient reason for stealing another woman’s baby and murdering it.”

  A great lurching of bedclothes, a strangled cry. Miranda lunged upwards with staring eyes and gaping mouth.

  “I—I—! But, Iris, you can’t suppose…!” was all she’d managed to gasp out before Iris’s hand was across her mouth, silencing her.

  “Hush! You’ll be waking the whole house!” she admonished; and then, as Miranda choked and struggled under the restraining hand: “Yes, my dear, you may well choke on that lie you’re trying to tell me! The lie you’re planning to tell everyone—Tim too, of course! You’re gambling on the likelihood that the poor sap will believe this lie, too, just as he believed the lie about your pregnancy! Or did, until I put him wise; and I’m going to put him wise this time, too.

  “You murdered that baby, Miranda, and I’m going to prove that you did. Prove it to Tim, and perhaps to the police too; that depends on you, my dear, somewhat; we’ll have to see.

  “Anyway, prove it I will, and you’re going to help me. So up you get, and get yourself dressed. I’d put on something warm if I were you, the night air is treacherous, is it not? Anyway, come along, get a move on, we haven’t got all night. We need to get there before the moon sets, of course, and it’s quite a distance, as you well know.

  “I said, get up! Or do you want me to wake Tim and take him with me, instead?—see what he says when I show him what I’ve found? How about that, eh…?

  “Aha! I thought that would get you moving! Good girl!”

  CHAPTER XXII

  IRIS DROVE CAREFULLY and without obvious haste through the empty moonlit streets, though in fact her mind leaped and churned with the urgency of the task ahead: to be run in for speeding while on such an errand would have been the final irony.

  The risk that Miranda might scream and struggle and try to get out when she began to realise whither they were bound, had also been on her mind; but here, it seemed, she’d been overestimating the dangers. Her companion sat limp as a doll in the passenger seat, hands folded and mouth half open. You would have thought she was asleep were it not for her eyes, round, surprised doll’s eyes, fixedly staring.

  Glancing swiftly sideways, Iris was conscious of a stirring of unease. Had the girl actually gone insane? That hadn’t been the idea at all. The insane are not responsible, they escape the consequences of their actions, no matter how frightful these actions may be; they have put themselves beyond the range of ordinary judgement, of blame, of hatred, of revenge. Iris did not wish Miranda to be beyond the range of these, she wanted her to suffer the full impact of them all, deprived, at last, of the uncritical protection of Tim’s pity and compassion.

  Oh, that compassion of his!—that idiot tolerance, gushing inexhaustibly, as from a broken main. Right now, Iris could almost hear his voice, his special, holier-than-thou voice that he kept for talking about Miranda: “But Iris, the poor kid didn’t know what she was doing … she’s been having some kind of a breakdown … the strain … the unhappiness … can’t you understand? … have you no compassion…?”

  “The poor kid…!” If she heard that phrase from his lips just once more, she’d … she’d…

  Watch it, Iris, watch it! A red light is a red light even at three in the morning, and no other car in sight for miles. She dare not—simply dare not—risk tangling with the police tonight for however trivial an offence. Fuming, swallowing her sense of urgency like a great plum stone, almost choking on it, Iris braked, and set herself to live through the long seconds before the lights should change.

  She stole another quick glance at her companion. Please God, let her not be actually, clinically mad: that will ruin everything.

  Whether God indeed answers prayers of such pure and undiluted hatred must be open to doubt; but anyway, whether in answer to her prayer or by mere coincidence, Iris found her fears almost at once set at rest by a small frightened voice—yes, frightened, not mad—addressing her out of the semi-darkness:

  “Where … where are you taking me, Iris? Where are we supposed to be going…?”

  Not mad, no: but bloody silly. Did the girl not realise, even now, what was going to happen to her? Did she not understand that Iris, by now, knew everything?

  “You stole another woman’s baby and murdered it,” Iris had accused her, in so many words, less than an hour ago. It could hardly be put plainer than that.

  Was the girl stupid, had she not taken it in properly? Or was she, rather, cunning, imagining that even at this late stage she might still bluff her way out of it with her innocent-young-girl act which had gone down so big with Tim once—and indeed might do so again if Iris didn’t play her cards carefully…?

  Or was she gambling on the possibility that Iris might have been only guessing, making a shot in the dark in the hope of startling a confession out of her victim?

  Because, of course, Miranda couldn’t know—for Iris hadn’t yet told her—how damning was the evidence against her; nor what it was that Iris had seen with her own eyes, had almost—but not quite—actually touched with her pink, well-manicured finger tips.

  “Where … where are we going, Iris?” came the small voice again—and either the girl really was quite bewildered and baffled, or else she was a consummate actress.

  Well, and she was, wasn’t she? She’d been acting non-stop for weeks, and well enough to fox the lot of them—except, of course, f
or Iris herself.

  Not that it mattered. Super-cunning or plain stupid, there was no need for a straight answer.

  “You’ll see soon enough,” Iris said, between clenched teeth; and then, unable to stop there, she continued: “You know, don’t you, that this is where the play-acting is going to stop? Your days of deceit and pretence and sham innocence are over, my dear, as will soon be clear to you. I told you I had proof of what you’ve done, didn’t I?—and I have. We are going to look at it together. And later on, Tim is going to look at it, too. He is going to know you at last for what you are—an evil, treacherous, cold-blooded little murderer! That goddam compassion of his is going to take some knocks tonight, I promise you, and so is that interminable idiot tolerance. ‘You’ve no proof!’ he shouted at me—and, by God, if it’s proof he wants, it’s proof he’s going to get, shoved right into his arms, worms and all…!”

  Proof! Tim had laughed at her, contemptuously, when she’d flung the word at him yesterday evening. “Spite” he’d called it. “Pure spite! You’ve always had it in for the poor kid! You can’t have any proof, it’s ridiculous! Murder, indeed! Well, go on then, give me some proof! Just give me some!”

  Shush, Tim, stop shouting, no need to wake the whole house. You want proof? You shall have proof—and from her own lying little lips at that…

  “Don’t you dare…!” He was shouting again, and Iris had to shush him once more. In a low, bitter whisper he repeated the words: “Don’t you dare! You’re not to say one word to the poor kid about your filthy suspicions! Do you understand? Not one word! As her medical adviser, I forbid it! She is not to be worried about anything, not anything at all, in her present state…”

  Well, tough: that had been the substance of Iris’ reply; and she’d gone on to point out that Lizzie Borden (if her memory served her) was trying to calm her nerves with a nice cup of tea when they came for her.

  “Like I say, tough. That’s the trouble with committing murder.”

  “What do you mean, Iris?” came the small voice again. “You can’t really think that I—”

  The little fool! Could she really be supposing that all this damn-fool innocence was going to get her anywhere?

  And the awful thing was, that it might! Look at the lies Tim had swallowed already?—what was to stop him swallowing more? He seemed to thrive on the diet…

  “Look,” she said. “You aren’t going to get away with it, do you know that? Yes, I know that Tim, poor sap, will try to believe you in the teeth of all the evidence—but don’t kid yourself it’s for the sake of your blue eyes! It isn’t; it’s for his own sake, and for the sake of his bloody career! Well, think about it; what sort of start will it be to a newly-qualified young doctor’s career to have been harbouring under his roof a psychopathic murderer? Either knowingly, which makes him a criminal, or unknowingly, which makes him a fool? Who’s going to want a fool for a doctor? Or a criminal either? His career will be finished before it’s begun. What Hospital Management Board do you think is going to employ him after seeing his picture plastered over the front page of every newspaper in the land alongside this blonde murderess!—and under-age with it…!

  “Or did you think, dear, that he was all set to sacrifice All for Love? My God—Tim doesn’t sacrifice things for love—didn’t you know? I could have told you—but you didn’t ask, did you?

  “Well, there you are. That’s it. The party’s over. This time, I have evidence that is overwhelming, incontrovertible … and you and I, together, are going to unearth it…”

  She gave a sudden, wild laugh: “‘Unearth’—that’s good, isn’t it! … Really rich…! Don’t you think so?”

  She shot a swift, sidelong glance at the white, quivering face, and laughed again, more softly.

  “Yes, you may well shiver and shake, Miranda! You’re in a state of shock, aren’t you? That’s what Tim tells me, did you know? ‘She’s in a state of shock,’ he says, all grave and professional: I just couldn’t stop giggling!

  “Don’t misunderstand me, my dear. I’m not questioning his diagnosis. Oh dear no, as if I would! I’m sure you are in a state of shock, anyone would be after committing so obscene and horrible a crime! I wouldn’t be surprised, you know” (this in gentle, reassuring tones) “if lots of murderers don’t feel just the way you do. I expect, if we only knew, they’re in a dreadful state of nerves for days afterwards: can’t sleep: can’t eat: the lot. Nightmares, too, I wouldn’t be surprised.

  “Which reminds me, what was that nightmare you were having just before you woke? You were cheeping and twitching like a new-born kitten, and so I knew that inside your head you were screaming at the top of your voice. You were, weren’t you? Screaming … screaming … and running away … running, running, running! Away from what, I wonder? I’d just love to know!”

  Still Miranda did not answer. Not that it mattered. Iris felt that she knew by heart, already, all the lies that were still to fall from those tremulous, half-open lips. Lies about where she’d been hiding during those two days of her absence; lies about those telephone calls announcing the birth of Baby Caroline.

  “I … I just couldn’t say that she was dead! I just couldn’t make myself say the words!” Miranda had already stammered in answer to an earlier query of Iris’s as to why, if she wanted to keep up the farce of having been pregnant, she hadn’t simply rung up to say that the baby had been born dead? Surely that was the obvious way out of the dilemma?

  “Oh, I know, Iris, I know, and that’s exactly what I’d planned to do … that’s exactly what I kept trying to do! I kept nerving myself to do it, but there were those great queues for the telephones at the air terminal, and so by the time I got there, I found I’d lost my nerve, and I just couldn’t say it… To say aloud, in words, that Baby Caroline was dead—I just couldn’t—I felt it was actually making her be dead—it felt like killing her, all over again! And so I kept putting it off—kept saying she was alive, just one more time… Next time, I kept telling myself, I’ll tell them she’s dead … but I still couldn’t! To actually say it… Oh, Iris, can’t you understand…?”

  A likely story! Just how likely, given all the circumstances, Iris was in no mood to notice, for she had already made up her mind that whatever Miranda told her in the course of the journey would necessarily be lies.

  But the end of the journey—Ah, that would be another matter! There, at the end of this moonlit ride, was the place where the lying had to stop. Under the great, damp, overhanging trees, where only the faint, occasional moonbeam flickered upon the dark, fallen leaves below…

  What would Miranda’s defence be then, as she stood upon the very spot, confronting the evidence with her own eyes, touching it with her own hands? And when they took the thing home and laid it in Tim’s arms, all streaked with fresh earth and with dead leaves clinging to it here and there, then what would he say? … How would he defend his precious protegé then…?

  Out of her mind. Maybe this was where you had to be in order to understand that place beyond the mind; that region from which the rational intellect shrinks back affrighted, and where the tortured soul runs free.

  Iris understood that place all too well; she knew those dark, terrible regions like the back of her hand; had even, as best she could, tried to describe them to Tim, but what was the use, when he was only a man, and such a young one at that? How could he understand the crippling jealousy, the blinding, uncontrollable rage against every smug, contented young mother pushing a healthy rosy baby in front of her, as in a Roman triumph, through the surburban streets? A baby whom she has been allowed to bring to full term, to bear, to enjoy, to show off in all its glory? How could Tim, or any man, be expected to understand the intensity of that rage, that envy? Or comprehend the mad longing, born of despair and grief, to destroy, destroy, destroy … to wipe for ever from those fulfilled, maternal faces, the smugness and the joy …

  Oh, and the effort it required, the mighty, almost superhuman exercise of will power, to keep these aw
ful impulses in check; to control them, to batten them down, day after day, week after week, along every pram-strewn street, in and out of every shop, until, gradually, they began to lose their demonic power.

  How could anyone understand it, who had only ever been a man?

  But Iris understood it. Oh, yes, Iris could comprehend the hugeness of the temptation by which Miranda had been overwhelmed; and at the very core of her hatred and black fury against the girl, there was a strange sense of comradeship, on some level too deep to explore, or even acknowledge; a sense of having been through fire and water together; and if Miranda had succumbed to the awful pressures, while Iris had resisted them, it seemed, in these black, subterranean regions of the mind, to be almost a trivial difference …

  But when Iris had tried to explain all this to Tim, revealing to him for the very first time the fearful, murderous impulses that had been triggered off by her own abortion; confiding in him secrets of her soul that she’d never dreamed of confiding before—what had he done?

  He’d turned on her, that’s what. Turned on her in fury—a very young man’s fury, compounded of guilt, fear, and sheer dismay.

  So she was dragging all that up again, was she? Was she never going to let it rest? Was she going to pursue him, like the Furies after Orestes, tormenting him for the rest of his life, never forgiving, never forgetting, hell-bent on making him pay, and pay, and pay, for that one small slip? Hell, he’d said he was sorry, hadn’t he? He’d done what he could to help her through it—helped her with the arrangements, the money … what more could a man do? And it had been her idea, anyway, the whole bloody mess-up, he’d never pushed her into the damned abortion, never pressured her… And as for bringing it up again now, all these months later, and dragging that poor kid into it as a stick to beat him with…!

  “That poor kid.” He’d said it just once too often. Just like she’d known he would.

  They were through central London now, and into the further suburbs, cruising through quiet, tree-lined streets; detached houses with neat lawns in front of them, and tall shrubs throwing shadows of inky blackness across the silent, moonlit road.