Crazy Lady

by James Hawkins

  Amelia takes a final look at the photo before putting it back into the old album, and then she explains. “My father was a magistrate; long line of magistrates. It’s like the family business, although you don’t get paid — not directly.”

  “Then how?”

  “Fringe benefits: a brace of pheasants from the lord of the manor, double measures at the bar, that sort of thing — connections. And my father was well connected.”

  “With the Crestons?”

  “He didn’t say much about any of the deaths,” Amelia carries on with a nod, “not to me anyway. But after he died I went through his stuff and found that he’d been getting money from Joe’s father.”

  “Hush money?”

  “Scandal wouldn’t be good for business,” suggests Amelia. “Especially in the chocolate business. I mean, it always has such innocent connotations. ‘Give her chocolates if you love her,’ they say.”

  “Then make her fat and give her diabetes,” adds Daphne somewhat caustically.

  “Chocolate people are really touchy about that,” warns Amelia. “Plus the Creston family are pillars of the church.”

  “I was listening to a program about that,” admits Daphne. “Apparently all the big chocolate companies were founded by churchy people.”

  “Quakers mainly,” agrees Amelia. “Although the Crestons have always been Church of England. Anyway, there was never any evidence that she killed the kids.”

  “Just rumour,” muses Daphne, knowing that rumour can be much more insidious than hard evidence. And that, in small-town England in the 1960s, any hint of scandal in the manor house would stir up the old wives.

  “I thought he might leave her after the first one,” continues Amelia, knowing that Daphne will understand her reference.

  “He didn’t?”

  “Couldn’t. ‘Till death do us part,’ he’d said, and he was stuck with it. She fell for another almost straight away, and his family were thrilled, especially when it was a boy.”

  “Then he died.”

  “Only a few months,” nods Amelia her face darkening again. “‘Tragic,’ my father said when the old vicar called, but it wasn’t so unusual in those days.”

  “And that was an accident too?” Asks Daphne incredulously.

  “Natural causes — suffocated on a feather pillow.”

  Too much luxury can kill, thinks Daphne as she goes on to ask about the third child — Johannes.

  “More tea?” starts Amelia leaping up, and then she realizes that an answer is called for. “Same kinda thing I suppose,” she adds as she takes the pot to the kitchen for a refill.

  The old brown album containing the photo sits temptingly on a piecrust table by Amelia’s chair, and with a quick check to make sure that her host isn’t returning, Daphne ferrets through it until she discovers a newspaper clipping.

  “Suspicious death…” runs the headline, and she quickly slips it into her bag and begins to put the album back.

  “Would you like a chocolate biscuit?” asks Amelia poking her head around the door.

  Daphne freezes with her back to the woman, but the album is still in her hand. “Lovely view,” she says, pretending to peer out of the window.

  “Foggy,” complains Amelia, but she doesn’t catch on. “Biscuit?” she asks again.

  “Yes, please,” says Daphne without turning. “I’m partial to a chocky bicky now and again.” Don’t look, don’t look, she pleads as she waits for Amelia to leave, then she drops the album and hustles back to her chair.

  “There,” says Amelia returning with as pleasant a face as she can muster. “Now tell me more about yourself, dear. I’d love to know how you got the OBE.”

  The heat of the Mediterranean sun has returned for Bliss and has brought unbridled joy: three perfect days and nights, full of wonderful food, conversation, adventures, and passionate lovemaking. As he and Yolanda lie naked on his bed listening to Billie Holiday — one of their favourites — singing, “Let’s do it. Let’s fall in love,” the air is scented with the sweet aftermath of sex as he pensively traces the scars across her breasts, saying, “I did that.”

  She clamps her hand over his mouth. “You did not,” she says, talking of the moment that Bliss took over the controls of a crashing plane following their escape from Iraq. “You saved my life — the scars are a small price.”

  But the marks, like brands in her flesh, sear him as much as they have marred her, and he is close to tears as he mumbles, “I’m so sorry.”

  “Why did they lie to us, David?” she asks as she strokes his face.

  “They were worried we might go public,” he answers simply, knowing that hundreds of infected computers are still out there, ticking time bombs. Knowing that with a single command every major system in the world could come down: banks, navigation, power, communication, security, water… But now is not the time, and he raises himself on his elbows to look at Yolanda. “I never thought that love — real love — existed until I met you,” he tells her.

  “I know,” she agrees. “I was the same. The others, all the others, were just practice, just a kind of extended foreplay leading to ecstasy.”

  “One night with you was better than all my other nights combined.”

  “You are a master, David. Do you know that? The first time we met I looked into your eyes and I knew it instantly. You are a master at everything you do.”

  “I’m not sure about the writing —” he begins, but she gently plants a kiss and stops him.

  “A master,” she breathes into his mouth.

  “I remember I was trying to talk but I kept getting confused,” he says, thinking of their first moments together. “I kept walking into pillars and things. And when you took my hand…”

  “Your elbows are sore,” she says and gently massages one as a cloud comes over her face. “David,” she begins seriously, but he doesn’t pick up the clue.

  “Yes?” he queries lightly. “There is something I have to tell you,” she continues darkly.

  Bliss freezes. Now he hears.

  She waits, deliberating, her face full of anguish. He senses the pain, feels the pain as her brow furrows and he reaches out to try to smooth out the creases.

  “It’s OK,” he says. “You can tell me anything. I want us to be completely honest with each other.”

  Ten seconds later he desperately wants to bite back his words.

  “There’s someone else in my life, David.”

  “Someone…”

  “A man — Klaus. We’ve been together for a while.”

  The ground falls from under him. It’s like a notification of sudden death, the worst job in the police — advising someone that their mother, son, or father is dead. And suddenly he is that person. “But I don’t understand. Where is he? What… why didn’t you tell…”

  Yolanda has tears in her eyes. “David, I didn’t know what to say. I love you.”

  Bliss is struggling into his trousers. His life is falling apart. Is that it? Is that all I’m allowed — three days? I wait half a lifetime and all I get is three days. I want the rest of my life.

  “David. Wait. Look, I love you.”

  “You told me that. But now you say there’s someone else.”

  “I thought you were dead. Klaus was very kind. I needed someone. I needed you, but you were dead.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “They said you were.”

  Bliss sits with his head in his hands fighting back the tears. “Are you married?”

  “No, no, it’s not… He wants me, but first he wants me to change.”

  “You mustn’t change to please a man. That doesn’t work. I love you just the way you are.”

  She smiles. “That’s a song.”

  “Don’t smile, Yolanda. Please don’t smile. I’m dying. You’re killing me. Please don’t smile.”

  “He was supposed to be here with me, but he had more important things.”

  Bliss perks up. “More important? He loves you, bu
t he has more important things than to be with you?”

  “I know. It doesn’t sound good.”

  “It stinks. What kind of man would do that? And what kind of man would love you only if you change?”

  “David. He’s been kind to me. I was in hospital. I couldn’t move. He came every day…”

  “And I didn’t? How could I? I would have been there.” Then he stops. “What are you trying to say?”

  “I have to go back to him.”

  “No. This isn’t right. You’ve always been mine. The moment I saw you I knew straight away — we knew straight away. You said so.”

  “But he needs me.”

  “And I don’t. Is that what you’re saying? Do you think I haven’t thought of you every day? Poor Daisy has been chucking herself at me for nearly two years and I always had an excuse — got to work; got to write. And all the time it was you. Knowing you were dead but refusing to believe. Trapped, just as much as the widows here. Unable to move on with my life, unwilling to give anyone else a chance, knowing you were the only one.”

  Yolanda winds the bed sheet around her as if she is suddenly embarrassed by her nakedness, saying, “David — I must call Klaus.”

  “And tell him what?”

  “I will tell him the truth.”

  “That you love me more than you love him.”

  “I cannot hurt him that much. You don’t understand. He is a kind man.”

  “Look at me. Do you love him more than me?”

  “I must go, David.”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “When will I see you again?”

  “I’m sorry, David. I just can’t do this.”

  She gathers up her clothes and closes the door behind her. Bliss hears a slam, and he sits fighting back the tears for a few minutes before opening up. “Edwards, you bastard,” he yells at the top of his voice. “Now I really do owe you.”

  If you love her, let her go, isn’t that what they say, he tells himself. But why me? If he loves her shouldn’t he let her go? What if she loves me as much as she says? What if she just feels pity for him? He was kind to her. I would have been kind to her. I just didn’t get the chance.

  A deep hole opens and he’s falling. There is only blackness beneath him for a few seconds before he tries to grab something. Maybe she’ll come back.

  She says she loves him.

  But she said she loved me.

  If I loved her that much I would have married her, he tries persuading himself, then he perks up. Why didn’t Klaus, or whatever his name is, marry her? She said they weren’t married.

  Then he falls again. Perhaps they are; perhaps she lied.

  Slow down, wait, maybe she’ll come to her senses. True love conquers all. Think of the movies, the songs, the books. Doesn’t true love always win out in the end?

  Yes. But this isn’t a movie.

  It could be a book, though. Just write. Get back to work. Put her out of your mind.

  Are you crazy?

  Daphne calls. “You sound as though someone’s nicked your bike,” she says when she hears the despair in his greeting.

  “She pinched my heart, Daphne, pinched my heart and trampled it into the ground. I can’t talk.”

  She said she’d always loved me, he reminds himself. That she had my image in her mind even before she was born, that she always knew I was the one. Was she lying? Why would she do that?

  A sharp knock on the apartment door jerks Bliss from his nightmare. She’s back, he thinks. She’s changed her mind. She knows it has to be me.

  Not too fast, he warns himself. Play it cool. Don’t scare her off. He opens the door on the second knock.

  “Daisy?”

  “I saw your friend. She was crying,” says the Frenchwoman as she tries to enter. “I come to give you back your key.”

  Bless stands mute, his heart sinking lower as he blocks the door.

  “Can I come in?”

  “Um… I don’t think…”

  She nudges him aside. “You had a fight, no?” she says as she closes the door behind her.

  “No. No fight,” he says, and quickly reruns the entire movie of his time with Yolanda and is unable to find the slightest hint of discord; he cannot point to a single moment or subject in which they were not in total harmony. “No,” he reiterates sadly. “We had absolutely nothing to fight about. We were made for each other.”

  “And now she cries?”

  chapter eight

  Neither Janet Thurgood nor Clive Sampson shows any signs of unhappiness when Trina checks on her clients following her daily rounds.

  “Hey. I’ll have to watch you two,” she says, finding them holding hands, then she pulls Clive to one side. “Treat her nice or no more enemas,” she warns, although his smile suggests he is now being satisfied in other ways. “Anyway, the heat’s off,” she adds, having confirmed with Mike Phillips that the dead constable’s heart was already on its last legs.

  “She may have done him a favour,” Phillips suggested. “At least it was quick.”

  “She didn’t do it, Mike,” yelled Trina, but the inspector laughed. “The jails would be empty if you were a cop.”

  “Anyway,” she added. “I’m gonna find out more about that place where she was.”

  “Careful…” Phillips warned, but Trina closed her ears, and as she leaves her lovebirds’ nest to drive home, she checks her watch for the time in England.

  “Hi, Daphne,” she says, driving with one knee as she switches between a banana sandwich, a coffee, and her cell-phone, then she explains she is planning on going under-cover for a few days.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” questions Daphne.

  “God. They’re Christians,” she says. “What are they gonna do — bore me to death with sermons? According to Janet all they do is pray.”

  Bliss is praying as he phones and re-phones Yolanda. Her recorded invitation to leave a message doesn’t appeal to him, and he persists until she finally picks up.

  “Hello,” he starts, and then his world comes apart completely as she tells him that she cannot speak. “I have debts. I am not available,” she says coolly and tries to end it, but he persists.

  “You had money,” he says, recalling the fact that she inherited a lucrative business from her father, but it takes her only a few moments to detail how, following their unauthorized escapade and plane crash in the mideast, she gradually lost control of the business and was forced to leave the police.

  “It doesn’t matter,” says Bliss. “If I quit tomorrow I’d still have a guaranteed pension, plus royalties from my book and public appearances.”

  “Book?” she queries.

  Bliss reminds her, adding, “We could have a wonderful life together and you’d never have to worry about the bills.” Then he realizes that his rival may be similarly set up. “Does Klaus have money?” he inquires concernedly.

  “No. None,” she says and laughs. “But he cares for me.”

  “I love you, Yolanda. I don’t just care for you. I’ve always loved you.”

  “I must go. Klaus would not like me talking to you.”

  “What are you saying? Does he own you?”

  “He does not like me talking to other men.”

  “So he decides who you can speak to and who you can’t?”

  “I should not have followed you. I should never see you again.”

  “Did Klaus tell you that as well?”

  “I have to go.”

  “Tell me you don’t love me,” he shouts as she prepares to cut him off. “At least do that for me.”

  “I can’t,” she says, and he hears a click that ricochets around his mind like a pistol shot.

  “Give me back my heart,” he cries, knowing his words are going nowhere, and he puts a Billie Holiday disc in his player and listens to “Lover Come Back to Me” as he turns back to his manuscript with a clear knowledge of where he has gone wrong.

  There’s no redemp
tion, no benefit to my protagonist, the masked man, he tells himself, realizing that the incarcerated man’s lifetime quest for true love was finally trashed; his story — so full of optimism and inspiration — ends in disaster and offers absolutely no hope for people who already think their lives are shit. I lift them up then chuck them onto the rocks, he tells himself as he considers dumping the whole thing in the bin. Life’s supposed to be happy ever after; what am I supposed to do, change history to suit Hollywood?

  The community of Beautiful may appear exactly as its name implies from the outside, but inside is where Trina is hoping to find herself, and she buddies up to a couple of long-skirted giggly teenagers pushing a supermarket buggy in the nearby community of Mountain Falls.

  “Hey. Like your scarves,” chats Trina, eyeing the brown headwear similar to Janet’s.

  The young girls turn pink, titter, and scuttle away, so Trina heads them off in the dairy aisle. “Are you from Beautiful?” she asks as innocently as possible, but it’s immediately clear that they’ve been primed.

  “Bye…” says one, and they spin the buggy back to fruits and veg.

  Stronger measures, thinks Trina, and she digs Janet’s scarf from the bottom of her bag and quickly ties it around her head.

  The confused look on the teenagers’ faces as they meet up with Trina again in frozen foods tells her that she’s winning, so she hangs back and lets them come to her.

  “Are you one of us?” asks one of the girls, being careful to keep her eyes in her buggy.

  “Similar,” admits Trina. “But I’ve been travelling a lot.”

  An hour later, once the Beautiful bus service (a clappedout 1960s minivan covered in hand-painted warnings against the dangers of mortal sin) has collected them and half a dozen others and driven them, singing hymn after hymn, to the community, Trina watches the surrounding forest of Sitka spruce and pine open into a stockaded compound of rusted cars and farm machinery. As the roughly hewn wooden gates let the visitor into the Saviour’s world, the smell of overburdened septic tanks and rotting garbage make her want to retch, and she recoils at the sight of ragged urchins scavenging in bins alongside squirrels and dogs.

  The young women and girls who sang their way home in the bus melt away as a small group of older women in gumboots, head scarves, and mud-stained dresses gather around to eye the alien. Trina looks into the sunken listless eyes of the scrawny inhabitants, thinking that they fall somewhere between anorexics and drug abusers, until the silence is broken by a bark from a bearded old man with hair flowing to his waist.