The Spinetinglers Anthology 2011

by Nolene-Patricia Dougan

  It seemed trivial at first, just tiredness and headaches, but soon developed into something more serious. She was rushed into hospital and put on a drip while the doctors argued over what was wrong with her. None of them really seemed to know.

  Although he’d hated her once, and had wanted her dead, he felt sorry for his ex–wife now, even visiting the hospital to assure her that the children were coping well. By that time they’d moved in with him, and Elena was proving to be a tactful and caring foster mum.

  Norma died after a week in intensive care, her sickness still undiagnosed. The arrangement with the girls became a permanent one. Jacobson told himself that he had never wanted it this way, but couldn’t suppress the thought that he had won life’s jackpot. The children were distressed at first, of course, but slowly came to terms with their loss. Elena’s calming presence, he was sure, had much to do with their recovery. He wondered if anything was beyond her.

  Returning early from work one day, he found her accessing the internet on his computer, ordering medicines from an online pharmacy in the Far East. ‘They are required to make me healthy and beautiful,’ she said, with one of her smiles. If she’d been purchasing several dozen rhino horns, he would have been unable to refuse her.

  After the arrival of a parcel covered with exotic stamps, she spent several hours in the locked spare bedroom, refusing even to eat; various pungent smells reached him from under the door. “No–one must see while I work,” she explained afterwards, “otherwise I might make mistake. And then I will not look so beautiful.”

  The only blight on his life was at work, where he’d lost out on promotion to a colleague after their immediate line manager retired early. He suspected nepotism was to blame; the successful candidate had an uncle in Human Resources.

  Worse still, his new boss was proving to be an unreasonable bully. Elena noticed the worry on his face, and her velvety interrogation soon drew the whole story out of him, all his frustrations and suspicions.

  “No problems, my darling,” she said in a soothing voice. “Everything will be OK, you will see.”

  Litman, his boss, fell ill not long afterwards and was rushed to hospital. He was dead within three days, the doctors still debating how to treat him.

  The shock felt throughout the office was tremendous. No–one was more stunned than Jacobson. The post mortem revealed that the man had had an undiagnosed heart problem, which was given out as the probable cause of death. Luckily, no–one else seemed to share his suspicions: two people who had crossed him, two unexplained illnesses, two corpses.

  Telling Elena of his promotion, he wondered at the note of triumph in her congratulations. And his uneasiness grew when another parcel arrived from the Far East and she again hid herself away in the spare bedroom. Making her own cosmetics – or so she said.

  There was some connection between all these events, he was sure, but what could he say to Elena? To anyone? Above all, he was afraid of losing her.

  Although Elena’s behaviour was unchanged as she moved serenely between childcare and domestic chores, he was continually watching her now, covertly studying the almost perfect face. He had no idea what he expected to see there.

  Among the many mysteries about Elena was a large sandalwood box that she had brought with her from the Philippines and kept, always locked, in her wardrobe. He was certain she used it to store the ‘medicines’ received by post. Perhaps it held other secrets, something that would reveal the truth about his wife. She carried the key to the box everywhere with her. Except when she was in the shower.

  Waiting for the sound of water on honeyed limbs, he went into the bedroom and quickly found the key under the pile of neatly folded clothes on her vanity stool.

  As with everything Elena did, the contents of the box were systematically arranged, a stone mortar and pestle and different–sized metal bowls and cups to one side, her ingredients to the other. There were many tubes of paste labelled in a foreign script and packages of vividly–coloured powder. Scarlet and orange and deep purple.

  The three dolls were in the middle of the box.

  The two smaller ones, no more than six inches high, were obviously meant to be a man and a woman, the latter with wisps of golden thread to represent hair. Norma’s dyed–blonde hair. Their bodies were a tangled mess, arms and legs and torsos fused together as if they’d been squeezed in a vice.

  Jacobson pictured tiny internal organs damaged beyond repair.

  The third doll was much larger, with brown cloth for a face and topped with a small forest of black thread. In contrast to the others, this one was plump and luxuriant–looking with all its limbs in perfect symmetry. Every part of it was covered with some mixture that had hardened to a translucent sheen; there looked to be many layers under the shiny top coat.

  Unable to put any shape to his thoughts, he quickly put away the box when he heard the shower being switched off. After the children had gone to bed that evening, he sat unseeing in front of the television until Elena came into the living room. To his horror, she was carrying the sandalwood box. She spoke quietly.

  “You have seen inside this?”

  He could only nod. Her next remark stunned him.

  “Good. I think it is time you know about me.” Then she asked, “Do you love me?”

  Jacobson wanted to throw himself at her feet, but attempted to match her calmness. “You know I do.”

  She seemed satisfied with his answer. “I am not what I seem,” she said. “But first you want to know about these, I think?”

  She opened the box and took out the two smaller dolls. He didn’t dare to speak.

  “They had to die and so I killed them.”

  The words were awful, terrifying, but spoken with such coolness that they seemed to delineate the natural order of things.

  “I did it for you, my darling,” she went on. “Those people make you so unhappy. I was very sad for you.”

  He realised then that she was crazy about him – as well as being simply crazy. The phrase had never seemed more appropriate: I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  But voodoo, wasn’t that peculiar to the Caribbean? Although there were so many questions he wanted to ask Elena, to express them would be to participate in her lunacy, to admit to his own madness. And yet it had happened. Two dolls, two dead people, no arguing with that.

  She was holding the larger doll. “This is me,” she said. As if he hadn’t realised!

  “Now I will tell you what is important,” she went on, her black eyes boring into him, holding him like an animal in a bright light. “I am older than I look.”

  “How much older?” Jacobson whispered the words, anticipating what she was about to say, the premonition compressing his chest.

  “Much older. I am eighty–two years.”

  As the grip tightened, cutting off oxygen to his brain, he blacked out.

  He was on the couch when he regained consciousness, Elena kneeling beside him, a concerned look on her face. He wanted to shrink away from her and at the same time to stroke the worry from her eyes. Jacobson had heard her use the same gentle tones with the girls, when they were having nightmares after Norma’s death.

  “My father was a great bomoh, a medicine man. He taught me many things. Things not known by any other people in this world. He taught me how to be a young girl for all time.”

  He also taught you how to kill, he felt like saying, but was compelled to return her shy smile when she murmured the words, “A beautiful girl.”

  Jacobson had recovered some of his composure, was even able to frame a question. “But why did you want you want to leave the Philippines?”

  “It is true that all of my close family are dead, but I still have many relatives there. Some of them know of my condition.” She could have been referring to a cold. “One of those people had moved into my district and was telling others about me, I think. I have long wanted to get away, to find a new life in another country. It was a sign for me to do it.”


  She looked at him fondly. “Then I met you and it was another sign.”

  She offered him her luscious lips. As they kissed, Jacobson told himself that the world was larger and much more strange than he had ever imagined. Accept everything, it was all he could do.

  So he smiled, if warily, when she took another doll from the box. He knew at once who it was. The manikin looked half–finished, still without legs, but had white cloth for the face and the semblance of a business suit forming the top half of its body.

  “This is you,” Elena said. “When it is ready, I will treat it in the same way as my own spirit figure.”

  Her words only gradually made sense.

  “You mean...” He gaped at her, too nervous to say any more, scared he had misinterpreted her meaning, even more afraid that he understood perfectly.

  “We will both live for ever.” She giggled the bedtime phrase. “Happy ever after.”

  He held back at first, thinking of her alternative use for his doll, but finally committed himself to her embrace. Accept everything.

  He was even able to joke, pointing at the few threads on the head of his doll and then to his own balding pate, “do you think you could put some more, you know, up there?”

  Her melodious laughter swept away the last of his reservations.

  How proud he would be at the forthcoming company dinner dance! Introducing her to his colleagues. His new boss. Elena caught his eye at that moment and it was as if she could read his mind.

  Endless horizons, no more boundaries.

  “I can always make another little man, my darling,” she whispered.

  Winston

  By Lazaro Zugor

  Interview Room 3 - 4.30pm.

  “Come on Des, we can't sit here all night. What happened, mate? What made you do it?”

  Des continued to look down at the table, lost in his thoughts as his friend and colleague of fifteen years, DS Gary Parkin yet again tried to get a statement from him.

  “You know how this works. Them upstairs only just gave the OK for me to work the tape with you because of what we've been to each other. You've got to give me something, anything, otherwise they’ll turn you straight over to the other lot. Des, it's me, Gary. Please, mate.”

  Des raised his head slowly and eyed his old friend with a hint of affection and then looked nervously at the tape recorder.

  “Is there anything you want to say off the record?”

  “That stays off, he mustn't hear. It stays off, yes?” Des looked at the recorder.

  Gary unplugged the machine. “Off, see? What made you do it, Des?”

  That Des had done it was not in any serious doubt, especially as it was him who had called the police and advised them to come to the house at Acacia Avenue to seal off the crime scene and take him into custody. The police had come quickly and entered to find three figures sitting on the sofa and chairs. One was Des holding in one hand a steel cheese wire, which he had used to garrote the second figure, Mr. Withers, who was slumped over, dead. The third person – if that is the right word – was a ventriloquist's puppet with close-cropped hair and wide brown eyes. It was sitting bolt upright looking at the body of Mr. Withers.

  Des had been arrested but hadn't uttered a word to anyone until now. Forensics had swept the room and found no evidence of anyone else having been there. They'd also found traces of Mr. Withers' blood on the puppet, which was taken away as evidence.

  “Is he here, in the building somewhere? There's no way he can hear, is there? You did take him in with me, didn't you?”

  “Des, you're not making any sense. Mr. Withers is dead. We only found the two of you and you had the murder weapon in your hand. He can't hear anything now, mate.”

  “I don't mean the old boy, I mean him, Winston. Is he under lock and key?”

  Gary looked intently at his friend and then asked in a disbelieving tone, “the puppet? Is that the way this is going, a plea of insanity?”

  “He said this would happen if I talked. They would think I'm mad. He warned me not to bring him into this, but this is all because of him.”

  “Des, you did it and we all know you did. We just don't know why.”

  “It may have been my hands but it was his thoughts and his rage in me that did it.”

  “A raging puppet, eh?” Gary asked with a hint of sarcasm.

  Des looked down at the table again. “He was right. He said you wouldn't believe me if I talked. Just hand me over to the suits and let them do their job. It's all over for me now.”

  “OK, OK, look, I'm sorry. Help me understand, Des. What cause did “Winston” have to rage against old Mr. Withers?”

  Des looked at Gary and scanned his face for evidence that he was being genuine in his enquiry.

  “Old Withers betrayed him by selling him to me. If he was willing to do that, Winston reckoned that there was nothing stopping him spilling the beans on the other murders.”

  A look of consternation came over Gary's face. “The other murders?”

  Des' hand, which was resting on the table, began to tremble slightly.

  “Are you saying that you bought Winston from Mr. Withers? Is that why you were at the flat that day?”

  “No.” Des paused. “No, I bought him about a year ago. It was at a car boot sale. I'd never met Withers before then.”

  Des began to journey back beyond a year ago when his life had been happy and normal and more importantly, his own. He'd been in a steady relationship with Rachel, his career was going well and he'd enjoyed his hobby as a children's entertainer. He'd done the occasional party doing tricks, providing balloons and games.

  It had been on a lazy Saturday morning, while off duty, that he and Rachel had wandered into the boot sale held in the nearby field. Most of it was just junk but one table had caught his eye. It had older things on it, even including a couple of service medals. Des hadn't paid the stallholder much attention but had caught sight of him sitting on a chair nearby.

  “These your medals?” He'd asked.

  The old man grunted. “Got that one at Normandy. 'Bravery', they said. You're welcome to it.”

  Des had been surprised and saddened by this old soldier's attitude. He'd seemed resigned and without emotion. It had occurred to Des that the items on the table were not just worthless bric-a-brac but mementoes of this man's life, whatever that had been, and he was just dumping the lot that morning.

  Des risked asking, “Surely things are not that bad are they?”

  The man tightened the muscles on his face and then nervously looked past Des to the end of the table where seated on a chair was a ventriloquist's puppet. Seeing it, Des did not wait for an answer but quickly changed the subject and asked, “That's nice. Are you selling him today?”

  “He's going with the rest of the stuff.”

  “Withers!” A voice said.

  Des turned his head towards the puppet and then back to Mr. Withers. “Wow, that's a real skill you don't often see done that well. Listen, I do small shows for kids and would love to use him. How much do you want for him?”

  A gravelly high pitched voice threatened, “I warned you if you go through with this there will be trouble.”

  “Very good,” Des chuckled, “I couldn't see your lips move once.”

  “Make me an offer.” Withers sounded urgent.

  “Oh I don't know, thirty-five?”

  “Done. Winston is yours now, take him.”

  As Des had counted out the money, he had been struck by how detached the seller had been, just staring into his eyes, not looking at the notes but putting them into his back pocket.

  Again a voice squealed from the end of the table, “You're a dead man, Withers. I will find you and make you suffer like the others!”

  Des smiled at Withers and said, “You really are very good at this. Were you ever in the business?”

  He seemed preoccupied as Des lifted Winston off the chair. “Eh? Oh, er, no, not me, no, never was.”

  “Well, anyway,
catch you later, and thanks,” Des said.

  Withers nodded slightly, blinked and then looked back down at his table.

  Rachel, who'd been browsing a couple of tables along, had now caught up with Des and together they took Winston to his new home.

  “For the kids,” Des said. “Might need a stitch or two and a bit of a clean.”

  As he felt over the clothes that covered the puppet, he came across a label stitched with a name and address: Mr. F. Withers, 16 Acacia Ave, Guildford.

  “Have to change that, I suppose.”

  ***

  Three weeks later, Des had another girl's birthday party and had introduced his ‘friend Winston’ to the children. As most children usually are, they had been intrigued by him and asked him all sorts of questions and made comments to him which ‘he’ replied to. Des had really enjoyed the banter until the birthday girl spoke. Perhaps, she was feeling a little put out by not being the centre of attention.

  “You look old and smelly, Winston!” She shrieked above the other young voices.

  The room had quietened a little as Des considered a light hearted reply.

  Then from nowhere inside him he heard Winston reply in a squeaky, menacing voice, “better to be a bit smelly than a snotty, spoilt little cow that only thinks of herself all the time.”

  There was an awkward silence among the children, which lasted for Des an agonizing length of time. The little girl's face grew red and she began to well up with tears. As she left the room to go to her mother, the other children had soon returned to their noisy selves and resumed talking to ‘Winston’.

  Des had felt the bead of cold sweat run down his forehead as he did his best to continue with the performance. Out of the corner of his eye he had noticed the girl and her mother return to the room with strained looks on their faces. He'd hurriedly finished his gig and during the raucous farewells from the children, made a hasty exit from the house. He got to his car, looked at Winston for a moment before bundling him into the boot. His hands had trembled on the wheel as he drove home knowing that something had happened back there and he was not dealing with it very well. Had he got just a bit carried away with his character? Lost control of his thoughts because this was a new act? His years on the force had made him very measured in his conversation and responses. It was not like him and it troubled him. He thought about what ‘Winston’ had said to the girl and re-lived the moment in his mind again and again. He'd not had any intention of saying anything like that to her.