by Matthew Crow
Within seconds I heard his footsteps grow closer and I ducked behind the door. I felt him beside me, breathing steadily but deeply. The door closed and we were face to face.
“J,” I said, taking the first coat I could find from the rack and putting it on. “This here’s private quarters, no place for punters.”
He smiled and walked towards me, taking my arm in his hand. “Let’s quit fooling, sugar. You’re the biggest disappointment I’ve had in a long time. And I’ve had my fair share let me tell you.”
“J don’t do this,” I said, freeing myself from his grip and falling back into a vanity mirror.
“You knew all along, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t, I - ” My cheek made the sound of a snapped twig as his hand graced it so suddenly. “I didn’t know J!”
“Bull... shit,” he said, one hand working inside of his pocket. “Now my way of thinking is that little bitch got something of mine, and I’m going to get it back. But what we have here is an unfortunate twist of fate.”
“Let me go,” I said, standing up only to be knocked back down to my original starting point
“See, I liked you a lot darling, liked you a lot.”
“I liked you too. I wish I didn’t but I did.”
He slapped me across the face once more. “The problem - once you’ve learned not to interrupt me - is that I now feel I’m owed something from the both of you. Between her and my money and you and my feelings. I’m a sensitive boy, Verity, and you hurt me real bad. You never can know anyone in this life, sugar... aint that the truth.” He grabbed me by the nape of my neck and dragged me to my feet.
“You weren’t so pure yourself. Those sad stories about your Daddy.”
“The specifics aren’t really the issue here. I want my money, and I want that little whore to realise the error of her ways.”
I spat in his face and within moments felt the weight of his body concentrate into a fist, which sent me spiralling to the ground. I screamed as he climbed on top of me, his hand holding my chest as he unbuttoned his trousers.
“God damn it girl I’m gonna show you just how bad you hurt me.”
I dug four nails into the skin of his forehead until I felt them pierce his flesh. Four tidy crescents of blood rose to the surface as he dragged me up and pushed me flat on my stomach.
“Now this is just a little reminder of what could have been, sugar.”
“J - ” I was barely able to breathe. I fumbled between the two coats as I felt him raise his waist inches from my back, but the gun became nothing more than a suggestion of itself beneath the cloth and the zips. “Please don’t do this J,” I said as I heard the quiet jingle of his buckle unfastening.
“Oh my, you’re gonna know about this.”
I screamed once more and then stopped, shocked, as the weight of his body pressed down on top of me and then lay, stuck like an anchor. I turned my head to see Miss Jemima standing above me. J groaned and pushed himself onto the floor as he made an attempt to sit up.
“Get the girl and go,” she said, dropping a broken stool to the ground and walking straight over J’s body. She helped me to my feet and reached behind the stage curtain, flipping a switch. Suddenly the stage lights dipped. The audience moaned and yelled. Then with another flick of a switch the room went dark save the candles that lined the tables and bar. “Go now.”
“Verity, why you ruining my dance! Feels like I got nearly two hundred dollars in these garters and fully intended making more,” Eve hissed.
“They’re here,” I said, taking her by the arm.
“What you talking about?”
Men from the audience, blind as moles, yelled into the darkness. Chairs shuffled and glasses clanked.
“The men, they’re here and they want their money.”
I felt Eve grow cold against me. “They’re going to kill us,” she said matter of factly.
“They’re going to try,” I said, leading her to the edge of the stage.
The girls around us clustered together as invisible hands began to crawl across the lip of the stage. One slipped on a patch of oil and the rest flocked to her assistance. We were inches from our escape when J appeared, upright and recovered.
“My God - ” Eve said, quietly, “ - this isn’t happening.”
“You bet your life it is baby,” J said, walking towards us.
We turned and ran towards the edge of the stage, jumping into the scrum. Kingpin stood up and fired a round into the air. Men started hollering, making their way towards the door. We joined the mass of bodies and dashed towards the exit. More bullets sounded out. Paul, now barely much more than a decorative torso, rolled to the floor and scrunched his eyes tightly as limbs ran over and past him as mocking as they were painful.
Outside, boys flew in every direction like spilled marbles. Grown men hid, frightened, in sandy ditches that surrounded the club like a moat. Most jumped into the closest cars to hand regardless of ownership. We reached my car and climbed inside.
It was almost a mile before either of us could speak. “They’ll find us,” said Eve, still blank, still certain. I reached my hand out and held tight onto her arm.
“We’ll be okay. I just need you to be strong for me now, you hear me? This can work.”
“I love you Verity, no two ways about it.”
“I love you too.”
“I’m so sorry.”
We made the remainder of the journey in clinical silence. Back at the trailer I unlocked the door with a wavering hand and made sure that the gun was, this time at least, in touching distance.
The moment I stepped inside something jerked me by the neck. I stumbled to the floor and Eve followed. A light was turned on and the door closed as Kingpin stepped towards us. Dollar bills marked the carpet like footprints. The couch had been upturned, the oven door snapped from its hinges. J made his way from the bedroom as Eve began to weep. “Welcome home ladies.”
“J, you don’t have to do this.” Eve shot a dumfounded look in my direction and I felt my heart break.
“I wouldn’t be troubling myself if this were not a paramount concern,” he said, taking Eve’s head in his hand as he bent towards her face. “Hey darling, long time no see.”
Kingpin moved towards us so that we were kneeling on the carpet between them.
“J, just take your money and go, please.”
“Now, I want to know where every damn dollar is, and I want to know now,” he said, picking something from the side of the couch.
From high above a cool ointment doused our heads. Eve began to whimper and whine as the smell of the fumes became overbearing.
“There’s some in the oven - ” I said.
“Found it.”
“And underneath the bed.”
A further trickle poured over us, soaking and stinging through our clothes.
“J, God please... ”
“Keep talking darling, it’ll be over soon.”
“Behind the bathtub - ”
“That’s a good girl,” he said, splashing short bursts of fuel across our bodies like babies being blessed.
“God, J... ”
“Not long to go darling, you just keep up the good work.”
“There’s some out back, underneath the power box - ” I became more frantic, my words jumbled and stuttered. Eve started to whisper something softly under her breath, occasionally choking as the fuel caught and dribbled into her mouth.
“What’s that you’re saying, precious? Is that an apology I hear?”
“Our father who art in heaven... ” her words began to take shape through the fracture of her voice. “Hallowed be thy name... ”
“There’s a whole bunch in a suitcase beneath the bed... please J don’t do this... ” I tried as more and more liquid cascaded around us, pooling between my splayed fingers.
“Thy kingdom come thy will be done... ”
“The last should be in the mattress, J, please, that’s all of it, just look, it’s there
... ” I pressed my hand to his ankle and felt it soak through the fabric of his trousers towards that strong, lean calf.
“And the rest,” he said.
“On earth as it is in heaven... ”
“That’s it.”
“I know that’s not true.”
“Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses... ”
“Bullshit!” he slammed the can into my face and I felt blood cut through the coolness of the petrol as it snaked its way down my chin.
“She sold it J, it’s gone, the money’s all there, just about, God J you can’t have what’s not there - ”
He upturned the canister and raised it high so that the torrent became steadier, gushing down on us like a waterfall.
“As we forgive those who trespass against us... ”
“Oh baby, it could have been so much better than this. We could have been so much better than this.”
Even when dizzy with the fumes I found myself wondering which of us he was addressing.
“And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil... ”
The final drops echoed out as they merged with the pool around us.
“J, please don’t do this.”
“For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory... ”
I tried to stand up, half blind and leaden with fear. “J, God, please listen to me, I will do anything, I mean anything. Just let her go, please, please don’t do this.”
With the palm of his hand he pressed me back to the floor, my face hanging low so that all I could see were my bent knees and Eve wringing her hands in the fold of her stomach. “Darling, it’s not personal. It’s just business.”
“For ever and ever... ”
I heard a match roar in his hand. There was a moment of still as the sulphur’s cackle dipped; its combustion merging smoothly with the steady burn of the narrow stick; the whole trailer suddenly illuminated by its amber orb.
“Amen... ” Eve finished and raised her head gently. Her hand jutted out and wrapped itself around Kingpin’s leg, the other curved smoothly as she pressed a nail file into the soft skin at the back of his knee, driving the metal blade all the way inside. “Verity go!” She gripped me by my arm and dragged me to my feet while she remained on the ground, working the metal farther into his skin as Kingpin roared in agony, tumbling to one side like a felled giant.
I stood up, propelled by her force, and ran to the door. Kingpin grabbed Eve by the hair and drove her face into the ground. J cupped the match, which extinguished in the palm of his hand, and made his way towards me. I felt air, the world, clear as rain in the desert, blow sweetly across my face before the door slammed shut. He pulled me back into the trailer and struck me so hard across the face I lay motionless on the floor.
Kingpin rose, doubled over, and passed something to J who took Eve’s head in his hand and whispered something in her ear. She nodded and looked him straight in the eye as he pressed once into the centre of her stomach. The whole time she didn’t flinch, not once.
Eve fell backwards gently, peacefully. Around her stomach a perfect rose began to bloom, its ruby stem trickling down between her legs. Her face turned towards me as she unfurled and relaxed; shades of scarlet gilding the pale curve of her body. A tear rolled down my face as she closed her eyes and was still.
I heard Kingpin groan and slump in the corner of the room. Footsteps fluttered past me and then grew louder until I could feel the tip of his sole at the side of my head.
I turned to face Eve, certain only that whatever he took he would not be granted the gift of my scream. Any fear I felt I held on to like treasure. I felt my body double as his foot thrust into my stomach, and then a second time as I snaked around myself. He knelt on top of me, my arms spread out and pinned beneath his knees. With the dull edge of the knife he traced my jaw line all the way to my breastbone, popping my buttons as he went. Then he stopped and looked down. He pressed his hands into the pocket of my jeans and pulled out the pistol.
He smiled at me as he placed it carefully on the floor, next to which he rested the knife.
When I heard the sound of the match I seemed certain of my own death; certain that after a brief agony all would be lost. I suppose somewhere in the back of my mind I had always assumed that the world ended with me; that with closed eyes darkness really was all that remained. But in those seconds, those long and frightening seconds, reality swept over me like a wave. If I were gone then the world would carry on. If I did not turn up for work then someone else would. If my taxes went unpaid the economy would adjust accordingly.
But what if I stopped writing? Would my memory remain acute, Jonah? Or would it fade with the ink and the paper until years passed by and I became little more than a forgotten amusement? What am I, I suppose is what I’m asking, and more importantly what am I to you?
I was granted no great epiphany as I closed my eyes and prayed that whatever came next would be as immediate as could be. There was no one moment that forced itself to the fore of my mind’s eye, enlightening me as to my function, my purpose, my origin. It was as though a movie was playing behind a screen, and all I could do was piece together a narrative from the glimpses of light and sound that flickered at the edges. Images grew and shrank, as strange and alien as another person’s photographs. I saw my mother, her face changing from rage to regret as was ever the case, and my father asleep in the dark, cooled by the television’s cold light, an empty glass falling from his unconscious grasp. I saw flowers in summer, the gentle snow that pre-empts the blizzard, a swing set, ribbons, I saw my lovers pass through me one by one, their faces shifting with each thrust; the wallpaper of my first home, the envelope of my first paycheque, someone’s coffin, Eve dancing on that very first night I laid eyes on her, a hospital bed. And then you, somehow, your presence as real as all those things yet a thousand times as vital, like a dark glitter scattered across all that went before and after.
I don’t know how many hours passed by after that. Whether they dismembered Eve before or after locating the money - almost all of which was gone when I returned - or whether Kingpin remained lame, or died haemorrhaging from his injuries. I don’t know how badly I was beaten, or how the decision to spare my life was reached. Most devastatingly of all I don’t know what became of Eve’s remains. I pray she is somewhere beautiful, somewhere quiet. Somewhere people may one day leave flowers, even without realising the significance. I pray that wherever she is she’s at peace, and laughing, and forever in love.
All I do know is that I woke up alone and frightened, and you were all I had left.
With all my heart and soul,
Always,
Verity
Dear Verity,
When I returned I found myself tearing apart my own house in the dead of night.
I turned every stone, so to speak, upending furniture, reaching into spaces that had never seen the likes of soap and water, puncturing plaster in speckled patterns. Occasionally sanity would prevail and I had to remind myself that I was working to a remit as I began smashing holes into the walls out of sheer frustration. After an hour of scrabbling about on my hands and knees I resigned myself firstly to failure, and then thought, perhaps, that Michael could have been lying all along. The ruse would not be beyond him had he thought that it might lead to him securing my services in whatever area he had them earmarked for. But even I couldn’t fool myself that easily.
I walked to the kitchen thirsty and exhausted, and took a sip of tepid water from a cup on the counter. The garden was still and peaceful, only just visible beneath the moon’s dusty light. Flowers were beginning to take hold where before there had only been dirt. The soil, tilled and quenched, was now rich and inhabitable, and led in a perfect runway towards my beautiful new workhouse.
I crossed the garden in my stocking feet, dew dampening the cuff of my jeans. Inside, the space was as I had left it. I took both halves of your letter from my pocket and returned it to the box where I store everythin
g you send me. Black fingerprints now lined the pages I had taken such care over - flexing the edges after reading so that they were as fresh as the day they were posted - and streaked down from the sentences that must have particularly amused Michael. I sealed the box and placed it back on the highest shelf.
I pushed my chair to one side and took out a hammer. The first floorboard proved the trickiest. I jammed the claw into its slim cleft and pulled as hard as I could until I fell backwards, the plank splintering into two separate lengths and jutting upwards. I reached down, too tired to so much as turn on a flashlight, and pulled a handful of weeds. I repeated the process again and again. By the sixth floorboard I was almost hysterical, as close to tearful as I think I’ve ever been. I reached down and patted the cold ground. Nothing. I pressed farther, my shoulder digging into the remaining wood of the ground. My fingertips brushed something soft. I inched forwards, nearly there, and managed to grasp its edge.
I removed my arm from the hole, a small cloth sack gripped tight in my fist. Coin and paper moved about inside as I passed it from hand to hand, almost relieved to find my madness denied by the horrible evidence.
I rolled the bag as tightly as its contents would allow before hiding it beneath my shirt and locking he door of the shed.
Above me a light turned on. Mrs Pemberton, dressed in a nightgown and curlers, appeared at the window like a ghost. “What’s that hollering down there?” she said, still shaky from sleep.
“Nothing Mrs Pemberton,” I said as I made my way back to the house.
“I heard a ruckus.”
“There was no ruckus.”
“Well I wouldn’t be standing at this window if you’d been going about your business quiet as a dormouse. I can’t hear my evening prayers.”
“Evening prayers were six hours ago Mrs Pemberton. Go back to bed.”
“That’s enough of that smart mouth. What you doing causing trouble at this hour?”
“I’m sorry, I’m done.”
“I don’t like this,” she said, closing her window. “I don’t like this one bit.”
