The Drowning People
Page 33
“Losing Charlie taught me something,” said Sarah softly; calmer now. “It taught me to observe, to understand people. For the first time in my life I learned to please.”
I looked at her steadily.
“Ella had always been the charming one, you know,” she went on. “I had never been able to compete.” She paused. “But when she took Charlie I set myself to learn her ways. And I learned how easily men are swayed by women….” She stopped short, realizing what she was saying, perhaps.
And in the silence I remembered our lunch on the day of Ella’s conviction and the ease with which I had fallen.
Without looking at my wife again I left the room.
CHAPTER 34
THE CORRIDOR WAS GLOOMY IN THE DUSK; and I sat alone in the window seat at its farthest end watching the last of the day-trippers catch the last of the boats just as Ella and I—years ago though in the opposite direction— had caught the last of the boats on my first visit to this place. Perhaps I half expected Sarah to follow me; to offer some word or gesture of regret. At the last moment I almost lost my nerve, you see; I nearly retreated in the hope of being able to forgive.
But forgiveness was not asked, as I had known that it would not be. And listening to the breaking of the waves I sat alone, staring at the door to my wife’s sitting room, wondering what right I would have had to grant it in any case. None, I knew. And so I sat, watching, as the corridor sank into darkness and filled with the first of the images I have since come to know so well again. Ella in the park, with her bitten nails: the beginning of it all. Her crumpled limbs in the sunshine of my attic. Her red eyes later, in that crowded courtroom, when she was lost to me and I thought her mad and would not smile at her.
I tried not to think of her body, years after, hanging from the ceiling of her cell; I tried not to think of how I had failed to mourn her then.
Slowly I got up; and in the dark I walked towards the crack of light under Sarah’s door. She was reading when I opened it; or at least sitting with a book on her lap, calm and unseeing. She did not say anything; did not seem even to notice me. She was lost in her own thoughts and did not look as I opened the bureau drawer and put on the gloves and picked up the gun. It was only as I crossed the room towards her that I saw the signs of fear on her face; the signs of fear and surprise; of shock. It was only at the last that she lost her sense of mastery; her certainty in her own success. And she had no time to struggle.
I shot her above her right ear, at something close to point-blank range.
Very deliberately, calm almost, I stepped over her body and clasped the gun in her limp right hand. Then I left the room and returned to my own, where I washed and dressed with slow deliberation; taking my time, doing things carefully. Sarah had taught me the value of detail.
The house was dark as I let myself out; only the light in my wife’s window burned. And guided by its glow I took the bag which held my clothes and gloves to the edge of the cliff; to the spot—for I am sentimental, even now—where Sarah had told me of Ella’s death on that blustery afternoon years ago.
The wind was calm last night; there was a full moon. I am fairly sure I found the right place.
RICHARD MASON is a student of English literature at New College, Oxford. He is currently at work on a second novel.