by Ruth Dugdall
It was all going wrong.
I began loading the dishwasher, briskly cleaning away the mess, chipping plates in my haste. When the table was wiped and everything clean I looked at the clock on the wall. It was a quarter to midnight. Pouring two large measures of Islay malt I took the unopened vial of GHB from the fridge and opened it, tipping the liquid into one of the tall glasses, using the drug instead of soda to make a long drink. I stirred it with my finger, which I licked, satisfied that the drug wasn’t detectable.
I went to the front lounge where Smith was sat looking out of the window and put my arms around his neck. “Let’s talk upstairs over a nightcap. Maybe we should make love first?” I needed to make it right between us. It was time to begin and I watched him take a swig of the whiskey. He winced, “This stuff is so salty. Good though.”
I held up my own glass in a toast. “To love.”
He clinked his glass against mine and finished his drink. I took his glass from him and went to the kitchen, pouring him another whisky and adding the last of the GHB from the opened vial. I returned to him and led the way to my bedroom.
After Smith finished his second drink, I held him tight as we fell on the bed, took him closer than if he was bound to me by rope. He pulled back, removed his glasses, looking so different without them. The skin around his weak eyes was white and perfect, like a child’s.
“God, that whiskey’s strong stuff. It’s gone straight to my head.”
I kissed him, unbuttoned his shirt, stroked my hand over his smooth chest, felt his ribs under my palm, felt his heartbeat with my fingers. Such a thin body; when Jesus died on the cross his ribs could be counted. I stroked Smith like a pianist finding a tune. I found beauty.
“I feel a bit dizzy. Must be all the alcohol,” he said, his voice already slurred as the drug coursed through his veins.
He was tense but allowed me to undress him, watching as I slipped off my knickers. We were soft and smooth, pale and clean, fitting together aesthetically, if not mechanically. The sex was awkward. His penis resisted my hand, my mouth, stubbornly flaccid.
“I’m sorry,” he said, looking towards the window. “I’m so sorry, Alice. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be a sacrifice. I want to live.” I couldn’t breathe. I felt rage like hot blood. How dare he change his mind? What kind of fool did he take me for?
“I want to travel, Alice. You and I together!”
“Travel?” I spat the word. “Where to?”
“To all the places I’ve never been. I’ve got money. There’s nothing to stop us.” Our plan, I thought, anger overcoming me until I wanted to break bones. What about our plan?
“I’m not going back to London, Alice. I’ve got my passport; I’ve got my American Express card. Anything else we need I’ll just buy.” He was swaying, sweat started to gather on his brow.
“You planned this,” I said. “Why else have your passport?”
“For identification, when they found my body. It was the only thing with my photo in. Believe me, Alice, this is better for you too. I only changed my mind tonight. It’s a sign from God. I didn’t plan this change of heart. I planned to die. I’d even written a diary to explain why I wanted to commit suicide. I was going to leave it here to exonerate you.”
“Where is it now?”
“I posted it to a friend, on a USB. I won’t need it anymore.”
He pulled me to him, his mouth grazing my shoulder then falling slack. I could feel the band-aid on the tips of his fingers grazing my thigh. The plan must go ahead. What he’d said was only words. His actions told me that he wanted to continue, even though he was now pale and his breathing was laboured as the drug worked its magic.
“Smith… this is our dream… this is what we both wanted.”
I took him on his back, made all the motions to drive us together. When his penis was in me I felt it harden, and I knew it wasn’t too late. I looked at the bedside clock – five minutes to midnight. As my own body tensed and began its incremental steps towards the great fall, he thrust into me with a sudden hunger. I saw his teeth, his closed eyes, and closed my own. He was deep inside me when he slurred, “Alice, change your mind. Come travelling with me.”
I bit his shoulder. He still thought he could change his mind.
He pushed into me with a boy’s eagerness, oblivious to my needs. I was wooden in his embrace, and he was too inexperienced to notice or care.
“Oh, Alice,” he moaned, taking me more firmly in his arms, thrusting faster.
It was nearly midnight.
I rolled over, pulling him with me so he was on top. Suddenly poised he shuddered, “Oh God, my arm. It hurts right up my arm.” He looked ghastly, like marble, and every breath was a struggle.
I didn’t let him rest, wouldn’t let him pull away. He was grunting, close to orgasm even as his pale face twisted in pain.
“Kiss me!” I demanded, my hands holding his buttocks as he bucked into me. He was unable to do anything else but give in to the demands of his body, and his kiss was an open mouth, a gasp of pain. As he came I swallowed his scream, and felt his heart give way to palpitations.
There was a deathly stillness. He struggled, gurgling and gasping, as I pushed him off me. He was doubled in agony, his arm held straight as his whole body shuddered, his heart giving in to cardiac arrest.
“This was what you wanted, Smith, remember? To cease upon the midnight with no pain.” He coughed, struggling to breathe. A war in his chest.
“The whiskey,” he gasped, “you drugged it.”
“You were afraid, but I helped you to see our plan through. You’re glad now, aren’t you?”
There was no fear in his eyes, and when they stopped rolling I saw peace. His body shuddered with the final tremors of life. I am a woman of honour. I didn’t go back on my word, even when he’d done so. A deal was struck and I had agreed to taste him. I took the knife from under my pillow.
It wasn’t easy to lay him straight and I wasn’t so gentle as I would have liked, but his body was awkward. It was hard work to get the angle right so that my grip on the knife was firm. He was still conscious when I took the bloody blade and coaxed his shrunken penis from the pink shell of his foreskin. I held firm and cut away a slice of skin.
Who would have thought there would be so much blood? Such a small piece of meat – I must have cut a vein.
I sucked the blood. I tasted him.
It was like eating the dead skin from a scab. It was nothing. It was rubber and salt. Looking at him, I swallowed and his mouth made a shape that I believed was a smile. He was leaving me, disapearing into himself.
I took the blade to the side of his penis and in one strong motion cut across the flesh. It was swift and bloody, the white cotton sheet bloomed with red petals. My face was splattered. My cheeks were wet as if with tears. Smith’s head hung to the side, a broken toy. His eyes rolled in their sockets, and a word of air came from his mute mouth. I wanted to close his eyes, which were fixed on me, the moon reflected in his iris was our only witness, but I was afraid to touch his face, afraid that he would suddenly right himself. How could I be scared after what I’d done? I looked down at the knife where beads of blood dripped onto the bedding. I lifted my finger to my lips, tasting salt and iron. Colour drained from his face like the beach at low tide, until he turned to alabaster.
I knew he was close to death.
“You’re happy now, Smith, aren’t you?” I whispered, “This is what you wanted.”
I lay beside him and kissed his cheek, putting the knife in his hand. I had never loved him more.
I was no longer afraid. I placed my head near his heart, listened to the silence, the moon outside lighting us with her gaze. I closed my eyes, waited for his body to cool and for Mummy to come back to me. I was with her again.
My heart was finally whole.
Forty-one
As usual, Cate Austin is late. I’m upstairs when I hear the knock, and not yet at the top of the stairs when she
knocks again. When I open the door she practically falls into the hallway. She’s full of energy and she bounds into my home, breathless. I lead her into the breakfast room, and she perches in the same place on the pine bench that she took a month before. A lifetime ago. She’s here to deliver her verdict and she looks tense, her fingers drumming on the table. She’s frowning and breathing heavily. “How are you today, Alice? Looking forward to the finale tomorrow?”
There’s something in her tone, hostility that I’ve not heard before. “I’ll feel better when I know what you’re recommending in your report.”
“Ah yes,” she says, her eyes glinting, “my report. I imagine you’re expecting a favourable conclusion. After all, our meetings have gone so well. So very smoothly. I imagine you’re dying to know what my report will say.”
“Yes, I am,” I confess, sitting opposite, “you know how much depends on it.”
“And do you think you deserve a favourable report, Alice?” Her tone is taunting, and too loud.
“I’ve attended all our appointments, I even came to your dismal office. And I’ve talked to you.”
She takes a sheaf of papers from her bag. The papers look too many to be a report. “You’ve certainly talked, Alice, that I won’t deny. And I’ve listened. You’ve had the opportunity to explain your motives and persuade me to propose an alternative to prison. You’ve killed two birds with one stone, so to speak.” There is an accusation in her narrowed eyes. I feel my colour rise. “He changed his mind, didn’t he, Alice? He didn’t want to die.”
She pushes the pile of papers across the table. On the top sheet, it says, Robin & Smith. I know immediately what it is. His diary. I knew he was keeping one though I never saw it. How the hell did she get it? I feel suddenly light, like I might faint.
I see from the rise of her chest that her heart is beating a rapid rhythm but her voice does not betray her. “You killed him anyway.”
I look at the pile of paper in front of me. I touch it with a finger, then pull away as if it’s hot. I don’t read the words, but look at Cate’s face. It’s as pale as a child’s, and I recognise something new: she’s furious with me.
“He advertised for a lover to help him die, remember?”
She breathes deeply, still maintaining her composure. “Yes, but that advert was in January. By the time he actually died he’d changed his mind. He didn’t want to die. He wanted you to travel together. He wanted to be with you.” I want her to stop, but she continues. “Read his diary, Alice. It’s all there. His doubts. That he changed his mind.” The new arrival of softness in her voice makes my limbs tense. “His illness.”
“Illness?” I have no idea what she means, though my pulse heeds the warning, begins to jog. The dull ache begins at the top of my spine and I know the headache is returning.
Now she speaks softly, every syllable urging my heart to sprint, to break into the tearing pace that I know as panic. “The tragic thing is, Alice, he was dying anyway. You didn’t know that, did you? It was ironic that you invented the story of the cancer for your parents when he actually was terminally ill. He had Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and maybe just a few weeks left to live. At first he thought that by choosing when to die he was taking control over the illness. Then he realised that he didn’t want to put you at risk. He’d decided to protect you. He wanted you to travel with him, to South America. He wanted to swim with dolphins. He wanted to live.”
“He was afraid, that was all.” I can only manage a few words, my chest is so full, so large. My ears throb to an urgent rhythm and I hold the table to calm the first wave of dizziness. “He needed me to take control, to help him fulfil his destiny. When he drank the whisky he knew the drug was in it.” My voice sounds unfamiliar, echoing itself, carved out of stone.
“So you admit you killed him? Oh, Alice.”
“But he wanted to die! The diary must confirm that?”
“It confirms everything, Alice. Why he placed the advert and why he wanted to be eaten.” She says the words softly, “CJD can’t be transmitted by sex. But it can be passed on through blood, through flesh. You did eat part of him, Alice, didn’t you?”
I nod, slowly. My head pounds in protest at the movement.
“I’m no expert so I’ve briefed the court doctor. Tomorrow he’ll be able to give you more information about the potential risk of you contracting CJD. But I didn’t want you to hear it first from a stranger.”
I’m the student now. I don’t understand. I refuse to understand. If I tried to use words I would stumble. My palms are sweaty and I look to the door with longing.
“He wanted to infect you, Alice. That was his intention. That was why he asked you to eat him.”
“No! He wanted me to eat him so that he could live in me. So he could live on.”
“That’s what he told you.” She says sadly.
“He wanted me to catch the disease?” Is Smith watching me now, from wherever the dead go, enjoying this moment? Tears relay down my cheeks, surprising my mouth with their salt. I can’t make sense of the jumble in my head. “But how did the diary get to be with you?”
“David wrote his final entry here, on his laptop, before he told you he’d changed his mind. He downloaded the diary onto a memory stick and posted it. He sent it to Krishna Dasi, a colleague he trusted, along with a note that said he wanted to travel. Krishna assumed he was talking about death, that it was a metaphor. I did too, until I read the final entry in the diary.
“Krishna didn’t hand the memory stick over straightaway because he didn’t want to get involved. He knew he would be implicated if he did because he’d given David a drug dealer’s name which was mentioned in the diary and he knew David had died of an overdose. Also, Krishna wanted to protect his friend, knowing that he had originally planned to infect you. Thankfully, in the end, he realised he had no right to keep it to himself.”
“But how did you come to have it?” My heart is slowing now, exhausted with effort. My limbs are heavy and the headache is now reigning in my brain, waves of pain that make me want to lie down in a dark room.
“Krishna gave it to me, the last time we were at court.”
I’m trying to listen. I’m trying to concentrate, despite the pain. Smith wanted to infect me with his disease. But then he changed his mind – he tried to stop it happening. In the end he wanted to save me. In going ahead with the plan I condemned myself.
“David thought he could stop the plan, call it off. But he was wrong, wasn’t he Alice? You weren’t going to let him go. You murdered him before he could do that.”
“It wasn’t murder. We had a plan. It had all been agreed.” She’s looking at me with disgust but also with pity.
“In the end he couldn’t bring himself to harm you.”
I see it suddenly, my mistake. My failure to recognise love. In the end Smith didn’t want to harm me. He loved me.
“What happens now?” I ask, “I’m being sentenced tomorrow.”
“My report reflects exactly what I’ve found out. It’s already filed with the court, and the USB is now with the police. There will be a new trial, but with a new charge. You’ll be charged with murder.”
I remember the story that scared me so much as a child, the tale of the woman with the jigsaw puzzle. Of the axe man at the window. When I first heard it I was twelve and I cried and cried until Dad came to take me home. And now, over twenty years later, I feel like I’m twelve again. I can’t stop crying. Only now I’m alone in my house and no-one is coming to save me. I had the jigsaw laid out, and thought I knew what the picture was, but when Cate Austin came today she showed me that I was wrong. Then she put in the final piece. She showed me the real picture and it’s horrible.
There has been a man at my window all along. Even worse, he’d already broken in and attacked me with a poisoned axe and I didn’t even feel it. And now there could be disease in my veins. All the headaches, dizziness, sickness…
All these months when the police and the courts hav
e been interrogating me, trying to discover if Smith wanted to die, deciding if I was a criminal, and all the time I was the victim. They arrested the wrong person. Smith has murdered me. He’s condemned me to a life of watching and waiting for telltale signs of a disease that may never materialise.
I thought we had achieved so much. The best, the perfect moment of death. To cease upon the midnight with no pain. I thought he loved me when he wanted to die, but now I see that in wanting to live he was trying to protect me. But I failed to protect myself.
I can’t bear this. I will not bear it. When Cate Austin has gone I reach for my telephone and dial, knowing there is only one person who can save me now.
Forty-two
