by Ruth Dugdall
I could hardly breathe, my throat tight, and I found myself rocking, my heart suddenly running a sprint. He held me, and I fell into his embrace. His arms were tight and my heartbeat fast, my hands wet. The surgical detachment was gone. My head knew that I was having a panic attack, and that the driver in the seat of my emotions was my heart. His words hadn’t been heard by Robin, the cool academic, they had been heard by the girl Alice who longed to be back again, in that room, with her still-warm Mummy. Who wanted that love back.
I hated Smith seeing me this way, but more than that I needed to be held. He supported me, arms around my tense body, until my breathing steadied. When my heart slowed I felt dizzy, as if I had just run a race. Smith pulled away. He was calm, as if my emotion has drained away his own. “I love you. I want us to be together. Always.”
He placed his hand on my forehead, still wet with perspiration, “You shall eat of my flesh. Do this as a memorial of me. We shall be one flesh, one blood.” It was a blessing.
He left me then, boarded the train. The train doors slammed closed as the conductor blew his whistle. I watched the train depart. I knew it would be the last time he would ever leave me. I was a convert. A disciple. I saw that everything before that moment had been a test.
Smith was ready to die.
Thirty-seven
I’m nervous as hell, with the sentencing just two days away. I feel sick and have a headache that refuses to die, even after four Nurofen. It’s Lee’s final day; tonight she flies back to Germany, her extended leave over. She wants to take me on a trip. I haven’t been swimming for decades.
Not since I was four-years-old.
“It’ll be fun,” Lee says, grabbing my hand and pulling me behind her, through the silver turnstile, the gateway to the whorls of water and screams and slipping feet.
In the changing room are three women, of various ages, at opposite corners of the room. The oldest woman rubs sagging goose-bumped flesh with a patterned towel, the youngest woman is still dry, and adjusting the straps on her Speedo costume. She wears a plastic hat, and goggles are on the bench in front of her. A serious swimmer. But it’s the third woman who captures my interest. I guess she’s a similar age to me and she’s helping her young daughter, a pale thing with limp bunches, into a red and white polka dot swimsuit. The girl is hopping, one foot to the other, like an excited sparrow in a birdbath. The mother looks my way and smiles, a distant greeting, a tired but happy face that makes my heart ache.
I lock myself into a cubicle while Lee changes in the communal area. I begin to remove my clothes, carefully folding them into a pile. Without my socks and boots the floor is wet and cold. I step into my new swimsuit, bought just moments ago in the small shop in the foyer. I hope it fits. It’s strange, the feeling of lycra over my stomach, my breasts. I feel more exposed than when naked. It was a mistake to agree to this, I shouldn’t have let Lee persuade me. When she said it would be fun she had no idea what she was asking of me. I haven’t swum since I was a child, and maybe I only swam then with Mummy’s help. What if I sink?
Lee is waiting for me, beyond the shallow footbath. She is simply waiting, in a plain navy costume, smiling. It’s easy for her, she’s relaxed here, after all those years standing by the pool-side ready to jump in if someone needed help. Behind her children screech as they hurl down the waterslide, landing in a splash at the bottom, disappearing under the force of their own weight. The echoing calls come to me as if from long ago.
I’m petrified and begin to shake.
“Come on, Alice. Let’s get in. It’s freezing just standing here.” Lee takes my hand. How is it that such a simple thing can steady me? “We’ll go to the children’s pool. It’ll be a lot warmer in there.” She leads me, allows me to find my way carefully on the wet tiles, stepping delicate as a flamingo.
The children’s pool is as warm as a bath, and just as shallow. I’m grateful for both. I watch as the girl in the polka dot swim-suit splashes around her mother, her orange armbands like the wings of an exotic bird.
We sit, with the warm water just below our necks, and under the water Lee keeps hold of my hand. She seems to be waiting for something to happen. I’m not waiting, I could stay here for a long time. I even close my eyes. This is it, I think. The moment I shall remember if I’m locked away. The thing I shall think about from my prison cell. And I think back, to another time, another swimming pool. I watch the young girl splashing, remembering that I too was young once. Mummy was with me. Lee, by my side, anchors me. She always did. “Now, Alice. The big pool. Come on!”
I follow, trusting her, still nervous of slipping. The silver steps take me into colder water, and deeper. I’m grateful for Lee’s hands on my waist, her closeness, but still the steps go down, lower into the deep water and then nothing. I’m out of my depth.
“It’s okay, Alice. I’ve got you.”
I panic like a cat thrown in a river, scrabbling for the edge. She lets me claw my way to her, supporting me as she treads water. “Don’t hold my neck, Alice. Hold my shoulders.” Her shoulders are narrow and sinewy, but I can feel the strength. Lee begins to swim, to move away from the side, taking me with her. A graceful breaststroke, with me holding on. We rise in the water as she pulls at each wave, my face just in the air, chlorine on my lips.
She swims like a dolphin.
I hold on, rescued, her shoulder a fin for me to grip. I trust in the strength that takes me out into the middle, where the water is deepest. I will not drown. I’m learning to swim.
I’m learning what it is to feel safe.
Back at home Lee cooks me supper. She massages my feet. She likes to do ordinary things. She likes to watch TV with a jumbo bag of popcorn. She likes to go to the Indian takeaway and order a vindaloo, even though it gives her wind. And she likes to ask questions. All the time, trying to fix me like some boat that’s got a leak, dammit, and she’ll sort that out, she’ll make it sound. She won’t stop, patching me up with normality. She’s like a child rattling a pill bottle. She just won’t get the message that the cap is designed to keep the contents safe.
And she’s so restless. She won’t keep still, even after sex when all I want to do is sleep. She props herself on an arm and annoys me with her stroking fingers, her probing questions: So how are your parents keeping? What good films have you seen recently? Are you still enjoying work? Peanut Butter or Marmite?
“Why do you care?” I snap, exasperated by the litany of interrogation, tired of feigning sleep. “You’ll be back in Germany soon.”
“I just want to talk, that’s all,” she says, bruised. Like a dog that’s just been kicked, she shrinks away from me. I’ve just opened up my body for her, what more does he want? Isn’t enough? Apparently not.
“The thing is Lee, this time tomorrow you’ll be in another country, and I don’t see the point in us having this kind of conversation. Oh, and I hate both peanut butter and marmite. There. Now can we please go to sleep?”
She touches my chin, tentatively kisses my cheek. When she speaks she sounds sad, “Not like this, Alice. I don’t want to force you to open up. I want you to trust me. You know I’d do anything to be with you. If you want me to, I’ll leave the forces. Or you could come with me. Back to Germany.”
“Ha! They’re cool about lesbians in the military now, are they?”
Lee looks stung. “I’m not saying it would be easy. But it’s possible. If you want to be with me, Alice, you can be.”
I screw my eyes shut and wait until her breathing is low and even, and I’m sure she is asleep. I watch the flicker of her eyelids, her hand uncurling like an upturned crab after the tide is out. It’s so easy for her. She doesn’t have to appear in court in two days. Then, with the dark sky outside my only witness, I let a shoal of tears swim over my face.
Later, we kiss goodbye. She has to go to Colchester to pack, before taking a taxi to the airport.
I am abandoned.
Thirty-eight
Robin: Are you there?
Robin: No. I’m restless.
Smith: Me too. I want to be with you.
Robin: You are. Always. Have you been thinking?
Smith: About death. I couldn’t stand it to be too quick I want to be conscious when you taste me. I want to see you do it.
Robin: What should I use to cut you?
Smith: I’ll do the cutting, Alice. I won’t let you do anything that gets you into trouble later. I just want you to be with me.
Robin: But you want me to taste you?
Smith: Yes. That above all else. Raw human flesh must be quite tough so I’ll have to have a good knife.
Robin: I’ll see to that.
Smith: I was thinking about the Holy Communion – the part of me you will eat. It makes sense for me to cut loose flesh. I think there’s one obvious choice.
The day before Smith died I went to a knife shop. Of course it wasn’t just a knife shop. It sold many other things but that was why I was there so it was a knife shop to me. The knives were under the counter and a woman wearing a striped butcher’s apron guarded them. The shop sold gadgets to baste and wedge and grate. The shop assistant waited patiently for me to decide. But I was pretending. I picked up designer crockery, touched the Alessi lemon zester, but what I really wanted was locked beneath glass, glinting like stars. “Can I help you?” she finally asked.
I tried to arrange my face into innocence, to keep my voice neutral. “I’d like to buy a carving knife please. A good one.”
She turned and unlocked the cabinet, reached in, held one out to me. “This is a good quality all-purpose knife. What’ll you be using it for?”
A difficult question. I thought of what to say, the closest approximation of the truth. It was simple. I needed a knife to cut flesh. I need a knife to kill. “For meat. Cutting chops.” I didn’t even know if that was right. I had never bought meat. Did people cut chops, or did the butcher do it for them? Did I need a cleaver?
She returned the knife she was holding into its wooden sheath. “This is the best one,” she said, showing me a larger knife, a triangle of steel with a rosewood handle. “It’s a Sabatier boning knife. Top quality.”
I took it, measuring the weight as if expert in such purchases. Someone approached the counter, another woman, and I stood aside so she could purchase her Krupps espresso machine. I could wait. I was happy. I’d found what I sought and it felt natural in my grip, a perfect fit.
The knife was expensive. It cost a week’s pay, but was worth it. The label boasted its credentials: sixty-three layers of hammered and folded steel, a hard yet flexible blade. Oh – and it was beautiful.
Do you want to put me in a box, just like the professionals? To call me mad or a freak?
I’m not mad. I’m like you, and, like you, I seek love. I’m someone who wants to be loved, who longs for devotion. But I don’t trust it. The only love I’ve ever known, died. That is why. Unsatisfactory. Distorted. My apology. But I’m a flawed human being. Just like you.
An act is always more than what happens. Everything carries more weight as a totality, than as a sum of separate parts. And the separate parts are these:
I had a knife, shiny and new and of the highest quality. It was hidden in my bedside cabinet, a final gift.
We had a plan. Smith would take the second vial of GHB and as he drifted into unconsciousness he would cut himself. While we waited for his death, for the heart attack that would come from the overdose, I would eat his flesh.
Thirty-nine
Cate slides the memory stick into the computer and waits for Smith’s diary to load onto the screen. In less than two hours she’ll have her final meeting with Alice. By then she’ll have decided what sentence to recommend. The report is already written, except for the final paragraph: the proposed sentence. She is thinking about a lengthy community order, maybe for two years, but most probably for three. She’s spoken to Dr Gregg, who will continue to work with Alice as an outpatient and he’s agreed that she could be managed in the community as long as she’s monitored. What would be the point of a prison sentence? Alice wouldn’t get any kind of therapy or intervention, and her problems don’t fit the standard ‘one size fits all’ treatments currently in vogue. At least working with her on an individual basis would give Cate the opportunity to look at Alice’s distorted attitude to relationships. She could refer Alice to a grief counsellor; the loss of her mother had affected Alice’s attitude to love and death and she had never worked through the trauma of finding her mother dead when she was just four-years-old.
Cate feels sorry for Alice. After reading most of David Jenkins’ diary it’s clear that he had wanted to die, and if Alice hadn’t volunteered he would of found somebody else to assist him. Added to this is the horrible fact of Jenkins’ illness and his desire to infect her with CJD. Who wouldn’t feel sorry for Alice, knowing that? Alice must be told that she was at risk of having the disease. There was no doubt in Cate’s mind that Alice, not Jenkins, was the real victim.
So, a community order was her preferred sentence. In court tomorrow she would argue strongly against prison. Backed up with a persuasive account of how Alice would be totally unable to cope with being locked up, Cate was sure she could convince the judge to be lenient. After all, assisting a suicide wasn’t the same as murder. David Jenkins had wanted to die.
She clicked the icon titled Robin & Smith and prepared to read the last part of his testimony:
It’s Friday night. Friday 15th June. My final night. It was strange leaving the bungalow, surreal, saying goodbye to the bits and pieces that make up my life’s journey. Though my travels only amount to the daily commute to the office, and a few holidays in the Lake District. I’ve surrounded myself with fossilised rocks, pictures of mountains I’ve seen but not climbed, menus from the local Chinese takeaway. This is the stuff of my life and, in the end, it’s pretty pathetic. It’ll be emptied into black plastic bags, maybe a few things will be taken to sell or give away, but most will end up in a landfill site. Forgotten. And that could’ve been my fate. Instead, I’ll die a memorable death. And, through Robin, part of me will live on, until her death. (Jesus said, I am the Resurrection and the Life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.)
I packed a small suitcase, like I was going on a weekend away, a mini-break to relieve the stress, to break the monotony. I packed carefully. A clean shirt. Worn but comfortable beige chinos. New underwear. A bag for a journey with no return. The thought makes me sentimental, and I took a photo from the shelf, dusty and ignored for months. In it my parents are young and smiling. It’s not how I remember them but I like it. It shows me how they were, how life was, before the car crash. The anniversary of my mother’s death is tomorrow.
I was just eight-years-old. Remembering that day, I think of the stamp book I’d been looking at, the new stamps carefully inserted behind paper sheets with tweezers. I was busy with this when my grandma took the call. It had been my dad calling; his injuries were only minor. I still had the tweezers in my hand when I heard her slide to the floor, sobbing as she held the receiver tight to her ear, listening for better news about her daughter that would never come. I threw my stamp collection away that night, but Dad picked it out of the trash, kept it with the photo albums in the cupboard that housed the electricity meter.
In the empty bungalow I went to the meter cupboard, opening it to the scurry of a spider and an outbreath of dust. It was there, beneath the yellow pages, on top of an old holiday brochure: my stamp book. I took it out. It was smaller than I remembered, a cardboard collection with my scrawled name inside the dog-eared front cover in careful round letters, but the stamps were immaculate. I put the book into the case, along with my laptop and the USB stick, safe in an envelope.
At London Liverpool Street I bought a single ticket, one way, to Colchester. I walked past a Big Issue seller, a mangy greyhound lying at his feet, and gave him a tenner. He tried to offer me the magazine but I didn�
��t take it. What good would it do me to read about the world? Instead, I stood and watched the board change, scanning for the town, until finally the name revealed itself. Platform twelve, the four o’clock service to Colchester.
The train was full, and I was forced to stand in the part where two carriages met and motion was jerky. I was next to the communal toilet, and the door kept opening in a belch of stale fags and piss. Next to me stood a weary mother with shopping bags and a young girl, who refused to stand. No doubt sick of being dragged around shops for hours, the girl silently rebelled by wiping her hand on the unclean floor, making shapes in the dust. Every time a traveller came to use the toilet the mother had to apologise and make a show of asking her daughter to get up.
I guessed the girl was about eight, and thought of myself at that age. I’d loved trains. I’d collected stamps from places I’d never been and would never go, though I didn’t know that then. I thought the world was mine for the taking. How innocent I was. I didn’t even know I was alive, never doubted that my eyes would open each day, that my lungs would take in air. I’d give anything for one hour, just sixty minutes, of that certainty now.
