As Far as You Can Go

by Lesley Glaister

  In the kitchen she breaks eggs into a bowl, her stomach rising to her throat as the thick yellow slime of the yolks streaks into the mucousy white. She tries to fork out the bloodspots, which are the dividing cells maybe dividing still as they are beaten and seasoned and poured into the pan, ceasing only when the temperature is hot enough to stop them. Four less chickens in the world. So what?

  Just enough for her and Larry. They sit in the kitchen. She doesn’t want to eat it herself, does no more than nibble a crispy edge. If she could only remember that night, if she could only remember.

  ‘How’s Mara?’ she says.

  ‘A little under the weather. She was upset by your – what shall we call it?’ Larry pauses. ‘Unexpected escapade. But she’ll be pleased to see you back.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Cassie says.

  ‘You surprised me, the two of you. Still, all right now. And that was magnifique.’ He dabs his lips with his napkin.

  ‘Just an ordinary omelette.’ She puts down her fork. ‘Larry, listen, the other night –’

  ‘Which particular night?’

  ‘You know. When Graham and Fred –’

  ‘That delightful evening.’

  ‘It sounds ridiculous, I know,’ she bleats out a sort of laugh, ‘but – I can’t remember quite what happened.’

  ‘No?’ He spreads his immaculate hands. The nails so shiny she wonders if it could be lacquer. Does he sit there, in the depths of his house, manicuring his nails?

  ‘Did you –’ The words fail in her mouth.

  ‘Did I –?’

  ‘Did we, I mean. Or did you take advantage of me sort of thing – when I was –’

  ‘Indisposed?’

  His devilish eyebrows twitch. His smile is slow, the tooth at the corner just glinting between his lips.

  ‘Did you?’

  He suddenly puts both hands on the table and pushes himself up. ‘Tell you what. You wait there, put the kettle on perhaps. I’ve something to show you. Something I, for one, am rather pleased with.’

  He goes off, humming, beard jerking forward. Cassie scrapes her omelette into the bin and fills the kettle. A brown thing scuttles across the floor. She watches, detached, as it disappears under the sink.

  Larry returns with an envelope from which he takes some prints. ‘Ready?’ He spreads them out on the table.

  Gravity forces her down on to a chair and she is hardly even surprised at what she sees. There she is, white shirt pulled up, head thrown back, posed on the sofa, eyes shut as if in pleasure or anticipation.

  ‘You bastard,’ she says quietly, her heart beating thickly in her throat.

  ‘And how could anyone possibly refuse such an invitation?’

  ‘I was out cold.’

  ‘Not so cold.’

  ‘You must have given me something,’ she says. ‘Did you? Like that,’ she swallows, ‘that date-rape drug.’

  He makes a steeple of his hands and rests them on his lips, gazes at her for a minute. There she is on the table, images and images, everything showing. Everything. She tears her eyes away. ‘The MediSwab –’

  ‘In the interests of hygiene.’

  ‘Hygiene!’ She gets up, jerking the table. ‘I’m telling Graham.’ Not sure if she means it but she has to say something, can’t bear the sticky miasma of collusion that is gathering around the table. ‘Do you know,’ she says, her voice grating, ‘I actually thought you were OK. I thought you were nice. Graham said you were a sleaze-bag but I – you really took me in.’

  ‘Sleaze-bag,’ he repeats, with a trace of amusement. ‘Just consider for a minute, before you run off, how this is going to look.’

  ‘He’ll believe me.’

  ‘Despite the evidence? Are you sure?’ He gathers up the photos and returns them to their envelope. ‘Just consider for a moment. If you were to see a picture of him, say, copulating with another woman. What would you think?’

  Copulating. She shudders.

  ‘If the evidence was there before your eyes?’

  Her mouth opens and closes.

  ‘Well, in any case,’ he says, ‘give it a bit of thought. Now. Must get on.’

  ‘To do what? File your nails?’ comes out of her mouth and then she wants to sink to the floor at the childishness, the petulance, the ridiculous irrelevance. But naturally it only makes him smile.

  Graham hears the door open. The light makes a sugary halo round her head. She closes the door quickly, comes across to him. She smells of sweat, cattish, almost feral.

  ‘OK?’ he says. He hardly dares to look into her eyes. What does she know?

  ‘What about you?’

  He props himself up on his elbow and the room doesn’t swing around him any more, like a jolted lampshade. That’s something. He looks at her profile, the peachy down on the slope of her cheek, it doesn’t tell him a thing.

  ‘He told me to give you some more pills but – listen, I don’t think we should eat or drink anything unless we get it ourselves.’

  He watches her expression.

  ‘I just think –’

  He lies back.

  ‘I mean I didn’t drink last night – it was probably only the sun that made you ill and all that wine but –’

  ‘You’re getting paranoid,’ he says.

  ‘OK then,’ she says. ‘Take them.’ She tips two pills out of the bottle and transfers them to his hand.

  He holds them in his palm. Two snowy torpedoes. She smiles at last, her freckles scrunching. ‘Maybe I am getting paranoid but – look, I do want to leave. Soon as we can.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He waits. ‘Is – is everything else all right?’ He dares to look into her face. Something odd going on there. She’s not being straight with him, but would surely be far, far angrier if she knew about Mara. ‘Could you bring me something to eat? Just dry toast or something.’

  ‘Good,’ she kisses his forehead. ‘Maybe a cup of tea?’

  She goes out. He waits a few moments and then swings himself round to a sitting position. It’s OK. From under his pillow slide four pills. The last two doses. The same thought. The same conclusion arrived at independently. Only he’d had a worse thought – a nightmarish thought – that Cassie was in on it. That she was drugging him. Cassie? Is he going off his head?

  He opens the door and stands outside. The sun casts rosy streamers of light from low on the horizon, the shadows of the trees stretch a hundred times their height. Washing still hangs stiff and sun-baked on the line, casting its own complex shadow. Seems like weeks ago that Cassie did that. Larry’s shirts, a sheet, Cassie’s knickers. Mara’s shed door shut.

  He goes up the veranda steps and puts his hand on the screen. And stops. They are in there talking, Cassie and Larry, he can see through the gap of the open door. Her profile, hair tied back, but wisps stand out whitely like strands of light. Can’t see Larry from this angle. But he can hear his voice.

  ‘Now, what shall we do with our evening?’

  ‘I’m tired. Think I’ll have an early night.’

  ‘That’s a little dull,’ Larry says. Graham sees a shadow flit. Slaps his arm, feeling the hot prickle of a bug bite.

  ‘Really, I’m tired, and Graham’s all alone.’

  ‘He will be asleep.’

  ‘How can you know?’

  ‘The pills, sleep is nature’s great healer, you must know that. The pills will speed his recovery by ensuring a deep and sound sleep.’

  Quiet.

  ‘Let’s go through into the sitting room again, shall we,’ Larry says. ‘Relax a bit before dinner.’

  ‘You must be joking!’

  Graham barges into the kitchen. Larry looks up, surprised. ‘Well, well, I assumed you’d be asleep.’

  ‘Bet you did. Thought you were meant to be bringing me some tea,’ he says to Cassie.

  She gets up, flustered. ‘I was just –’ She gestures towards the kettle.

  ‘Perhaps you should start the meal?’ Larry says. He doesn’t take his eyes off Graham’s
. ‘Maybe we should get Mara up?’

  ‘You’re not hungry again?’ Cassie says, looking at the unwashed plates still on the table.

  ‘I’ll help you,’ Graham says.

  ‘No, no,’ Larry says, ‘sit down.’

  Cassie stands looking at the two of them, until Larry switches his attention to her. ‘Perhaps you could give us a minute?’ he says.

  She looks terrified. ‘I need to er –’ She tails off, throws Graham a strange pleading look and goes out.

  He sits down. Legs weak. ‘What’s going on?’ he says.

  ‘Tell you what,’ Larry says, ‘why not come through into the sitting room? Sit down comfortably. I’ve got something to show you. Could you stomach a beer?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’ll excuse me if I –’ As he passes, Graham gets a whiff of the sickly cologne. Saliva floods his mouth as if he’s about to spew again. Larry opens a beer, the neat knob of his Adam’s apple slides as he takes a swallow, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. ‘Come on.’

  Graham pushes himself up and follows him into the hall. Larry unclips the keys from his waist and unlocks a door into a big dim room. Just as Cassie described. Only no fire.

  His eyes go to the sofa. Brown velvet worn bare in patches like the hide of an old bear. He looks away, notices a painting above the fireplace, glass so grimy you can just make out a watercolour of the bush, a black figure with a stick on a rise. Red hills rippling behind him.

  ‘Came with the house,’ Larry says. ‘Worth a bob or two. However, that’s not what I wanted to show you.’ He puts down one envelope that he’d been clutching and picks up another from the mantelpiece. He slides a photo out of it. He hands it to Graham and goes over to the window, pulls the curtains back to let in the last of the light. Graham sits down on the sofa. Dim blurry print, digital. It is of a couple having sex. His arse is small and pale between her dark, sturdy, paint-smeared thighs. Her face is swoony with pleasure. And it is Mara. His face is hidden, but there is no doubt that it is himself.

  ‘I warn you, any violence and Cassie will immediately become familiar with these.’

  He can hear Cassie, back in the kitchen again, the regular chop, chop, chop of knife against wooden board.

  ‘What do you think?’ Larry walks over to him. Stands above. Graham will not look up. Larrys voice is filled with glee. ‘What is that absurd expression? Gobsmacked,’ he says. ‘Don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone look gobsmacked before.’ He waits, his legs twitching in their pale pressed trousers. Graham squeezes his eyes tightly shut and sees red. Energy pumps through his arms, he stands up but Larry has backed off. Is over by the door before he can take a swing at him.

  Larry tuts, hand on the door handle. ‘Now, now,’ he says. ‘Can’t we talk like civilised people? Won’t beat about the bush. You behave or I show Cassie this rather splendid image. Deal?’

  ‘Behave?’ Graham goes over to the grate and flicks his lighter at the print. It’s not readily flammable and takes several flicks until it catches, the image shrivelling away to ash. He drops it in the grate.

  ‘Plenty more where that came from,’ Larry observes. He’s half out the door. Something in Graham could almost laugh. ‘Now, I’d like you to spend another morning with Mara. Tomorrow, shall we say?’

  Graham pauses. ‘How did you take it?’

  ‘Trade secret. Now come on, let’s see how Cassie’s doing in the kitchen.’

  Graham shakes his head, stands up, then goes for him. Larry’s out the door, tries to slam it but he’s misjudged Graham’s speed and he gets through after him. Chases Larry through into the kitchen, gets him smash on his jaw and he falls backwards, just goes down; crash of his head against the stove, spray of blood sizzling on to the hot plate where the kettle is rising to a boil, immediate sausagey smell of cooked blood, bubbles rising and charring black. Larry slumps down beside the stove, blood coming from his head, eyes shut.

  Graham goes back into the sitting room, takes both envelopes from the mantelpiece, brings them through and stuffs them into the flames inside the stove. The flyscreen bangs and he jumps up. Cassie stands in the doorway, open-mouthed, arms full of white washing.

  ‘Graham!’ she wails. Drops the washing. ‘Oh my –’ She drops to her knees beside Larry.

  Graham’s legs give way. He gets on to a chair, puts his face in his hands. Maybe passes out for a second. Deafening fizz in his ears. Fist burning again, skin split. Stink of burnt blood.

  ‘Gotta get out,’ he says. Goes out the door, looks back, Larry slumped, Cassie kneeling, white clothes on the floor. Steam from the kettle. He walks away from the house and into the dark. Air is warm around his feet and legs; cooler, higher. Maybe his fist is bust. Takes a breath. A couple of stars have come out. The moon gleams like a dead old tooth.

  Thirty-two

  The kettle hisses. Cassie gets up and moves it off the hot centre. Black-flaked bubbles. The smell mixing with the chopped onions on the side. Larry is unconscious but not dead. She takes his limp hand, tries to pull him into a more comfortable position. She gathers up some of the shirts and bundles them under his head for a pillow. At least they’re clean, like dressings. Dark blood soaks into them. They’ll be ruined. Yella pushes in through the screen. He comes across to Larry, whines, sniff, licks his face.

  She doesn’t know what to do. What do you do? You phone someone, an ambulance, but there is no phone. She thinks of the radio. The keys are clipped to his belt. For his own good she should go through. Radio and bathroom – get some stuff for his head. For his own good. Antiseptic or something? The wound is underneath, can’t bring herself to turn him. She’s ashamed. Just leave it. Head wounds bleed a lot, she remembers that from somewhere. They look much worse than they are.

  ‘Larry?’ she tries – not a flicker. His face is grey, but he’s breathing quite steadily, she watches the rise and fall of his ribs. His eyelashes are stubby and grey. He’s bitten his lip, fleck of blood, shiny swelling. She unclips the keys from his belt. A heavy bunch. She stands up, giddy from crouching. She goes to the door and looks out. Almost dark. A clear evening, moon up. The sound of an owl. Mara’s door shut. Should she take her anything? Should she tell her? She squints across towards the trees and sees movement.

  ‘Graham,’ she calls, not too loud. She beckons him. He walks towards her, feet dragging like an old man’s. He says nothing, goes into the kitchen, stops and stares at Larry. He sits at the table. He looks so unlike himself. So pale.

  ‘You still haven’t eaten anything,’ she says.

  He shakes his head. Looks at her as if she’s mad. Half his hair has come out of its rubber band and hangs beside his face. His fist, lying on the table, is bruised. Flies buzz over the table, over Larry.

  ‘We should see if we can radio for help,’ she says. She holds up the keys. He nods weakly. ‘Look,’ she says, ‘you must eat something.’ She opens the biscuit tin. ‘Have a flapjack,’ she says.

  ‘Couldn’t.’

  ‘Eat it.’ She puts it on the table in front of him with a glass of water. Stands by him while he chews and swallows. ‘OK?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He looks at Larry again. ‘Christ,’ he says. ‘He slipped – I didn’t mean this.’

  ‘Shhhh. Come on. Oh, we’d better take a light.’ She lifts the globe of a kerosene lamp and lights it. Not quite dark yet. The wick smokes and the flame flutters till it settles, throwing a soft yellow glow.

  They go into the hall. She fumbles about with the keys until she’s able to unlock the study door. A clustery, sick excitement rises inside her. First thing they see in the lamplight is a picture of the two of them, pinned on the wall. A black and white print. It is themselves, naked, making love. Taken in their room, on their bed. Not very clear but it is definitely them. Cassie’s eyes are closed, her mouth open in a smiling grimace, as if she is in agony.

  The blood drains from Cassie’s face. ‘The pervert. How?’ In the shadows thrown by the lamp Graham’s face scares her. She looks roun
d. There is a radio; a computer; shelves of audio tapes; files. It’s so neat, she’s never seen anything so neat. Everything labelled, dated in black ink, his minute, cramped but oh so neat handwriting. She props the door open so they can hear – just in case.

  ‘Can you work the radio?’ she says.

  He tears his eyes away from the picture. ‘Dunno.’ He leans over. ‘What will we say?’

  ‘There’s been a fight, that’s all.’

  Box files marked with dates. Photographs. She shudders. One marked CORRESPONDENCE. She takes it off the shelf and opens it. Sees at once her own writing. A card to Patsy. Miss you so much. Why don’t you write? ‘My God,’ she says, ‘Graham, these are our letters and stuff.’

  He makes the radio hiss. ‘Mayday, Mayday,’ he says, pressing something.

  ‘Stop pratting about. Look – he never posted anything!’ She sees her own words: Graham and me – why don’t you write – it’s all so strange. She shuts the lid, opens another file. More cards and letters. She picks one out. The same parrot postcard she’d sent – thought she’d sent – herself.

  Darling Mum and Dad,

  Mum, you would die at the dirt! Could you send me some more T-shirts – very cool ones and that old broderie anglaise dress? I asked Larry, Dad, no he doesn’t play golf! Think time’s going to go pretty slowly. Keeping up my French. Will write more later. Miss you tons. Lots of love, Lucy. (And Ben) [added in another hand].

  Cassie fights to keep her voice level, ‘The others. What do you think happened to them?’

  ‘Can’t work this bloody thing.’

  She looks round. Fear prickles like sharp fur down her back.

  ‘He can’t hurt us now,’ Graham says, touching her hand.

  ‘Let’s see what we can find out. Now, while he’s out of it, quick, just see if we can find out what the hell’s going on. Keep trying the radio.’