by Gabi Moore
“Let’s pull away a little,” she said. “Not completely. Just out of his reach.”
My Nora. My strange, dark, almost diabolical Nora.
I put my hand on the ignition again and turned the engine over, but it wouldn’t start. She didn’t seem panicked. Instead, she set her jaw and looked out at him through the window, sputtering in the rain with the water threatening to take him under again. At first I couldn’t hear it clearly, but the second time he yelled out I heard it.
“Help me!” he screamed, and floundered for the door handle. Just at that moment the car groaned and lurched, and my hand instinctively went to the hand brake to steady us. But still we rolled slightly back and then paused. We weren’t sliding. The mud and gravel underneath us was. He was now thumping loudly on the glass.
Nora reached down to open the window but I stopped her.
“The car’s sliding, Nora. If you pull him in he could tip the car.” But she opened the window anyway, and instantly a wet slice of the storm came bursting onto my lap, dousing us both in rain. His fingers curled over the edge of the opened window and the car groaned again, this time louder.
“Don’t open the door, Nora, the car will flood!”
The scene before my squinting eyes was a crazy jumbled painting of blue and grey streaks, and somewhere in that rain and darkness I saw Nora reach forward and clasp her hands tightly round the pale, wet arms of what I could now clearly see to be my father. The car groaned and he yelled out and in a great wet crunch she had pulled him halfway inside, after which he kicked and clambered in the rest of the way, over my lap, before flopping behind back onto the car seats behind us.
We were all completely drenched in warm rain water, fumbling in the dark, but it took me no time at all to reach for the gun and press it into Nora’s hands.
“Do it,” I said.
She was now in the passenger seat, I was in the driver’s seat and we were both swiveled around on our knees to face my father, spluttering and soaked through like the strangest fish. He looked old. Frail, almost. His mouth hung loose and his hair looked stringy and pasted wet against his scalp. It was a rare moment to catch him not wearing a suit, not looking groomed and dapper and in complete control.
“Mistress,” he said with a sneer, and put his hands in the air.
The barrel of the gun was steady and aimed squarely at his head.
“I had hoped we would meet under better circumstances,” he said.
Was the car about to move again? How long before all three of us were tumbled down this river? Nora inched forward to him, but I was glued to the spot. She needed this. She wanted this. Everything was coming to a head and she seemed to be relishing the moment, enjoying how good it felt to turn around and confront the thing chasing us, to stare into its dark eyes and challenge it. Nora and I had made it, despite how fucked up she was, how fucked up I was, despite everything that had stood in our way, we had made it, and we were just seconds away from the finish line.
“You like holding that gun, don’t you, Mistress? Does it make you feel powerful?” he said and chuckled quietly to himself.
The bang reverberated throughout the car and numbed my ears, but in a flash I saw that she had missed him, and that he was now squirming away and lurching towards us in the front seats. The car wobbled and jerked back a few feet, causing a sickening crunch of the gravel and mud beneath us. In slow motion I saw him struggle to steady himself as the car tilted backwards. The gun flew from Nora’s hand and he went for it.
He swiftly snatched the gun, cocked the trigger and sent another deafening boom into the air, this one bringing a bright red burst to the edge of Nora’s arm. She was flung backwards against the dashboard, grimacing.
“Nora!”
We had to go. The car was going under, and fast. What happened next did so in just a few seconds, but to this day I can remember each millisecond unfolding in perfect, drawn out clarity. An animal rage in his eyes, he steadied himself and aimed at her again, but Nora was now perched up on the dashboard, high above him, and with one forceful movement she brought her knee to her chest and then kicked it down again, right onto his chest.
“Let’s go!” she screamed, and reached for the door handle.
“Nora, no!” I yelled, but the door was flung wide and instantly a gush of water hit the car. Her hand flew so quickly to mine, and clutched it so tightly, I was sure she was near to drawing blood. Propelling myself off the door on the driver’s side, I kicked up and followed her as she leapt from the door on her side, miraculously diving clear of the torrent now swirling into the car.
My feet used the car seat, the gear shift, then finally the lip of the outside door as steps of a ladder I scrambled over, and in a heartbeat we were free of the car, just as a third shot rang out behind us. But this one sounded different. It sounded contained. One hand clawing at Nora’s, and the other trying to find solid ground underneath the vicious tumult of rocks and black water and still more rain, I watched as the car groaned one last time and wrenched loose. I heard Nora screaming somewhere ahead and above me, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from the unbelievable sight of an entire car being rapidly pulled away and swallowed by the flood.
We somehow managed to scramble higher up onto the cliff face, clutching at exposed roots and rocks, and soon we had gained some ground. But I never took my eyes off the car. Only half of the trunk could be seen poking out of the water now and the rest was submerged. No sign of him. Had the water done Nora’s job for her?
When the car disappeared fully underneath I reached for her and cradled her hard in my arms. The rain beat down on our tired bodies and sodden clothes. Her body jerked and shook in my grasp with what could have been laughter, could have been sobbing. I don’t know how long we stared at the water, and the spot where the car used to be. But eventually the thought settled: it was all underwater now. Gone. My father was buried in a grave of murky, gritty water, and would never, could never come for us again.
Eventually the rain softened a little and the great sloshing water slowed a little into a steady flow, the path already well beaten. My eyes, adjusting to the darkness, could make out the very tops of small trees poking through the water, which itself was filled with debris of all kinds. But my father was not there anymore. The sudden weight of the water-filled car, along with the momentum of the flood, had sucked him in and down, and now it was hard to believe that an entire vehicle was contained in there somewhere. My father had been one of the most powerful men in the world. He had been a giant. And now he shared the same fate as snapped twigs and branches, here where his money and notoriety meant nothing.
I couldn’t think clearly just then. When I felt Nora go limp in my arms and when I noticed that she didn’t respond to me calling her name, I didn’t think about what I needed to do, I just did it. The wetness of the blood as it gushed from her arm felt different to the wetness all around us. Warmer, and thicker. Though I couldn’t think at all, I now recognize this one moment as the moment I became a man. My own man. I hadn’t realized the sheer weight I had been carrying, the invisible ropes that bound me to my father, ropes that were always pulling, pulling, pulling me towards the same fight, the same awful dilemma.
But once the water had rinsed that all away, I felt light. It barely felt Nora’s weight at all as I knelt down, hoisted her over my shoulders and stood up again, ready to find a way off the mountain face and to safety. How light a load she was, compared to all the bullshit I had willingly carried all my life! As a little boy, nothing in the world had seemed more important than making my father proud, than impressing and, later, beating him. But now he was gone, and I felt for the first time how utterly pointless it all was. I had never needed money. I had never needed ‘success’. It had all been for him, to please him, to compete with him, and now he was gone.
One painful step at a time, I dug my toes into the crumbling hillside and found a path. The rain eased a little and eventually stopped. The river of rushing water still whispered below,
but I didn’t feel afraid. In time, I found a path through a knot of thick bushes and out onto flat ground, where I could dimly make out an unflooded road in the distance.
“Nora? Baby are you with me?”
No answer.
I picked up the pace, almost running towards that road. I had to find help for Nora. She had been shot in the arm, but the real threat was gone now, and I felt an unspeakable optimism as the road came into clearer view and I even detected the lights of some houses in the far distance.
“Nora? Stay with me, ok?”
When we reached the road I gently placed her down for a moment to rest, catch my breath and think. She was warm and still breathing, but likely in shock. If I put my head down and ran I could make it to those lights in twenty, maybe thirty minutes. When I knelt down to lift her again though, I saw the bright glint on her now open eyes.
“Nora…”
“I’m fine. I’m OK. It doesn’t hurt. Don’t worry about me, it’ll all be fine,” she said quickly, tripping over her words.
“Nora, I need to tell you something. Back there, in the water… he’s gone, Nora. You saw that didn’t you? He can’t chase us anymore.”
“I know,” she said plainly.
“Nora, I love you.”
“I know. I have to tell you something too,” she said and struggled to prop herself up on her elbows.
“Yes? Anything. Just tell me.”
“We’re being honest now, aren’t we? A new era. Honest with each other,” she said, sounding a little delirious.
“Yes, yes, of course. Tell me anything you need to. Are you happy? Are you OK?”
“Oh I’m perfect. Never been better. But there’s one more thing I wanted to be honest about. One thing I should have told you, back there at the house. Don’t ever buy me lingerie again, OK?”
“What?” I said, but she had passed out and was limp again in my arms.
Chapter 9 - Nora
The first thing I saw was a little brown bird, and then another. They both hopped on the stone tiles, pecked at the dust and then hopped away again out of my sight, chirruping.
I cracked my eyes open a little more and winced as the sunshine hit my eyeballs, brighter than I remembered it ever being. I scanned internally – one entire side of my body was numb, and I felt a strange texture pressing into my back.
Then I remembered.
The car.
The flood.
I bolted upright and immediately regretted it as the numbness became pain and I fell back again. Convinced I wasn’t dying, but slowly coming to understand that coordinating myself was taking more effort than I thought, I waited and took a few deep breaths, trying to piece together the events of the night before. Gradually, I coaxed my eyes completely open and found myself on a wide, outdoor terrace, tiled and guarded on the four corners by some tired-looking palm trees. When I wobbled a little I realized I was on a large hammock, a few little brown birds still busy under my dangling feet and a cool, wide open blue sky above me.
I swung my legs down and onto the tiles, then looked around. There were a few white plastic lawn chairs. Some pot plants, a grizzled looking rag mat and a rustic door leading inside. Though I couldn’t see it, I heard a little traffic beneath me and figured I must be on the roof of a small building, alone. I staggered to my feet and poked around, then made my way through the door and into a cool, dark room, also empty.
I hadn’t killed him.
Dear god, I had wanted to. I was ready to. And I would have. But lo and behold, at the final hour he was swept away from me and now …well, you can’t kill someone who’s already dead, can you?
I wondered if I wanted to throw up or if I was just hungry. I examine my arm to find it tightly bandaged and smelling vaguely of a chemical I thought I recognized. I couldn’t remove it and examine the damage myself without a pair of scissors, so I let it be and resolved to explore the room instead.
I felt the way electronics must feel after you switch them off and then on again. Calm. Blank. Dean would appear soon, I was sure, and explain everything. I combed over my memories again and again to try to sort out where we were, and what had happened. But I couldn’t recall anything after we had clung together on that weird stony ledge and watched the great Jeff Cane bubble down and disappear forever. My world had simply gone black after that. And now it was blue and bright. Were we even in Bolivia anymore?
“Nora.”
I didn’t need to turn to look to see who the voice belonged to. What did it matter, what country we were in, if we were here together? I sighed and closed my eyes as I felt warm hands enclose my waist. I had no idea what day it was, where I was, or what lay under those bandages, but I knew him. The smell of his skin. The way the air sounded as it went into his body and left again. It was as though our bodies were tuned enough to one another that I could almost feel the Dean-shaped space he occupied in the air behind me.
There was nothing to say. So when he extended his hand I took it and followed him wordlessly into the rest of the house, where he sat me down, then poured me a glass of water. The place was sparsely furnished, but cleaned and organized in a way that suggested regular female attention. There were doilies and little candle holders on the side tables that made me think of my grandmother, and nothing on the walls.
“You’ve been sleeping for hours,” he said at last. “I’m so glad you’re awake. How do you feel?”
I took a deep breath and wondered the same.
“I feel amazing,” I said, and he gave me one of his juicy smiles.
“You were really going to do it.” He sat opposite me on a wicker chair, elbows on his knees, hands clasped.
“But I didn’t, in the end.”
We exchanged a glance that transmitted more information than our lips could at that moment.
“Are you hurt, Dean?”
“No.”
“How do you feel?”
He leaned back in his chair and exhaled loudly.
“I think I feel amazing too.”
“Dean?”
“Yes?”
“What are we doing? Everything’s…”
The room was deathly quiet.
“It does feel like everything’s changed, doesn’t it?” he said.
It did.
“Last night… I feel so… I told you things. And you saw a part of me that—”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” he said.
“Will they come looking for him? What happens now?”
He gestured to a folded newspaper on the table off to the side.
“I bought that this morning. Seems nobody even knows he came out here. I called Charlie. They’re saying they think he’s still in California, just in hiding.”
“So they don’t… they don’t know we tried to…”
“How could they? It’s not our problem anymore.”
“He’s gone. He’s gone.
My head reeled, and the bandages began to itch.
“After the car sunk into the water,” I said, closing my eyes to try and conjure last night’s memory.
“You fainted. I carried you to the main road, then I found a little village. A guy there spoke English, and said he had a guest house and he could drive us both out there. He and I dressed your wound – it bled a lot but the bullet didn’t enter. You just got grazed.”
“And he’s gone.”
“At the bottom of a dirty river in some dinky town in Bolivia, yes.”
“Do we say anything?”
“Do you want to?”
“I want to… Jesus, Dean this is all so surreal. Have you contacted Maria and the others at the villa?”
“Not yet. I wanted to wait till you were awake.” He looked at me like he knew how hard I was thinking.
“Let’s not tell them. Not yet.”
“They’ll be worried.”
“I know. But we’ll go back eventually. Let’s …let’s stay out here a while longer. Just you and me.”
“What do you m
ean, stay out here?”
“I mean, let’s… just forget about everything. Let’s just run away.”
“Nora…”
“I’m serious,” I said and stood, although the moment I was on my feet my head pulsed hard again and I reached out for the chair to keep my balance.
“Nora, you’ve been shot. You fainted. You need to heal.”
He was standing next to me now, his warm hands again at my waist. I caught his eye and couldn’t help staring at his lips. And just like that I wanted him, and his lips were on mine, and we kissed urgently, tenderly. My arm hurt as I collapsed into his grasp but I didn’t care, I just needed to be close to him. What had I ever done to deserve such a perfect man? My hands found their fumbling way down to his belt and pulled his shirt free, then slipped onto his naked skin underneath. I loved the fine trail of hair that led from his navel down into his boxers. I loved the smell of soap on his skin, loved how warm he was.
I soon did away with his shirt and pressed myself against his firm, bare chest.
“Nora, wait… are you sure you don’t need to rest?” he said and lifted my chin to search my face. I answered him with a kiss, but this time a deeper, slower one. I loved the chase, the push and pull, the call and response of our tongues. I loved the deep low growl I could hear in his chest as he held me, and his arms caressed up and down my back.
“I’m OK. You’ll be gentle with me, won’t you?” I said after coming up for air.
He tenderly stroked a lock of hair from my brow and brought his lips to mine again. All at once his hands went to my hips, grasped me there and I was hoisted up high, where he carried me over to the sofa and placed me gently down. I smiled at the crown of his head as he delivered a few more random kisses to the rest of my body.
“We have this guest house all to ourselves. Just you and I. We should get Tilly and go back home soon, but until then, you just tell me what you need,” he purred, and firmly pushed me back into the sofa, then spread my legs wide.
