To Know My Crime

by Fiona Capp

  His wife, he says, was a good listener. He didn’t realise how much he relied on her sympathetic ear until it was gone. She’d had enough of what she called his obsession. She wanted him to move on. Somewhere along the line, it seems they grew tired of each other.

  He waves away a fly that has been hovering around his face. ‘She was dead against buying this place back. That’s what finished us. Most of our friends took her side. Some won’t even speak to me now. They treat me as if I’ve committed a crime.’ With mock seriousness, he adds, ‘What happens if someone confesses a crime to you? Do you have to report them?’

  Angela smiles to herself. Not an uncommon question. And it goes to the heart of the matter. ‘The unconscious observes no laws, moral or otherwise. It’s a law unto itself, a kind of Wild West. Which is why every patient, whether they’re conscious of it or not, believes they’re guilty of a crime.’

  Morrow shifts in his chair, laughing uneasily. ‘We all want to murder our fathers and sleep with our mothers, eh? Or the other way round.’

  It suddenly strikes her that their professions are not all that different. Both demand a kind of faith and a degree of volatility that is dangerously like falling in love. Except that the politician sets out to seduce, while the analyst’s presence is enough. As far as Freud was concerned, falling in love with the doctor was the patient’s inevitable fate. It was absolutely necessary for a cure to take place. Angela wonders if he will understand; most don’t. It too deeply offends their daytime selves.

  As she tries to explain, she watches his face. When he nods, she cautiously continues. The patient’s infatuation is a symptom of their resistance to speaking of their buried life. A diversion of energies, you might say. Or a smokescreen. The analyst’s job is to use the infatuation to bring repressed memories to the surface. ‘But you have to be careful. It can look dangerously like an abuse of power.’

  Perspiration is trickling down Morrow’s cheek. ‘A temptation in any profession. It’s a hazardous line between speaking one’s mind and saying too much. What a minefield!’

  A catering van pulls up in the driveway. Morrow excuses himself and goes to speak to the driver. A few minutes later, Ned and Mai come through the gate from Millionaires Walk. Morrow arranges more chairs around the table and urges them to sit down. A bald-headed man in a white chef’s jacket and checked pants, who seems to have materialised out of nowhere, places platters of antipasti and bowls of salad and bread in front of them.

  ‘I wish we could take you down there,’ Mai says to Angela. ‘But I think it’d be too hard.’

  Morrow is hovering behind them, a bottle of wine in each hand. He pours, and the caterer makes himself scarce. ‘One of the neighbours, an elderly chap, has a lift that goes down the cliff; you might have seen it. They won’t mind if we use it.’

  Over lunch they marvel over the weather, how balmy it is for mid-autumn. The conversation drifts to summers gone. Ned tells a story from their childhood, the time Angela fell asleep on her lilo and floated out into the bay and how, when he swam out to make sure she was okay, she pretended nothing was wrong and put on a blissful smile and said, ‘Isn’t it peaceful out here?’

  Everyone laughs.

  Angela remembers how the people on the beach looked like smudges, like beings from another world. After the fall, she’d had the same feeling. Of looking back on the life she once knew as a distant shore.

  Morrow proposes a swim after lunch, and Ned says he has the perfect solution for Angela, the inflatable mattress in the boatshed. She hasn’t been in the sea for years and is afraid she’s lost her nerve, yet she longs to be back in the water. Inside the house, Mai helps her on with her jungle-print bathers. Angela looks askance at her spindly legs. They were once so muscular and strong. She hardly recognises them now.

  Mai deftly removes the catheter bag and caps the tube before tucking it into Angela’s swim-suit. She gives her a reassuring smile.

  When they get down to the beach, Mai and Ned lift her onto the mattress, then they head off to the jetty. Morrow guides her out through the shallows.

  ‘I seem to have become your responsibility,’ Angela says, one hand trailing in the water. She wonders whether she should ask him to splash some on her shoulders and neck.

  ‘I wish I had more like it.’

  He sinks into the water at her side. They watch Ned and Mai peering over the edge of the jetty. Angela knows exactly what Ned will do next. As if on cue, he scoops Mai up from behind and heaves her into the bay and then follows straight after, hugging his knees to his chin and hitting the surface with a crash. Little spasms of water from Ned’s bomb jiggle the mattress.

  Angela rolls her eyes. ‘You must’ve got a fright when you found him in your boatshed.’

  ‘Let’s just say it’s lucky your brother has charm.’ He looks across at the jetty. ‘Where have they gone?’

  There is a surge of movement below them. Mai’s streaming head pops up next to Angela. ‘All okay?’ Ned surfaces at her side.

  Angela shoos them away. ‘Stop worrying, both of you. Go and have fun.’

  She lies back with a smile. How unexpectedly perfect the day has turned out, how good it is to be back here, on the peninsula, back by the sea. And in such pleasant company. Morrow’s warmth, his solicitude, his flashes of vulnerability, have taken her by surprise.

  She closes her eyes, unaware of the ferry pulling away from the pier or the surge of swell travelling towards her. She is enjoying the sun on her face, has almost drifted off, when a jerky little wave upsets the mattress, catching her off guard. Suddenly she is rocking violently, lurching from one side to the other as she whips her shoulders back to recover her balance, and before anyone can stop her, she has toppled face down into the bay.

  The cold shoots through her brow. Panic grabs the back of her head, jerks it up to the air and smashes it down before she can gulp a breath. She clamps her lips shut just in time, somehow manages to get a grip on herself. Hanging in a dead man’s float, she stares at the ripplies on the seafloor, waiting for them to fish her out. It’s all she can do now. Wait to be waited upon, powerless as a queen.

  A moment later, they have flipped her onto her back. Mai clambers onto the mattress and yanks Angela up by the armpits while Ned and Morrow lift her from either side. Three anxious faces peer at her, asking if she is all right. Morrow removes a strand of hair fracturing her face and gives her an anxious smile. She is vaguely aware of him apologising profusely, but he seems far away. Above her, the crucifix of a bird soars into her vision, a bird with such a massive wingspan it must be an albatross, flying so low she can see the quiver of black-tipped feathers under its wings. Then everything clouds over as her eye sockets become brimming pools. She lifts a hand to wipe them and fireworks explode from her shoulder as her arm drops uselessly back.

  17.

  The wet sand where the tide has receded is as smooth and hard as a mirror. At his feet, he can see the white shimmer of clouds and scraps of blue sky and the occasional seagull hanging on an invisible current. All it took was a little wave, the smallest surge. If it had happened to anyone else it would have been a hoot. But if water gets in Angela’s lungs, she can’t cough it out. And it happened with the three of them right next to her, right at her side. Ned is still kicking himself.

  The other day, she asked him again about the money for the operation. The way she trusted him so completely made him want to howl. He told her that they would have to wait for a bit, until some of their shares recovered their pre-crash value. It was nothing to worry about, simply that things were a little tighter than they would otherwise have been.

  ‘I didn’t tell you earlier because I didn’t want to alarm you.’

  ‘Should I be alarmed?’

  ‘Not at all,’ he lied.

  ‘Good. Do you mind me leaving it to you?’

  His face reddened. ‘Of course not. Things are starting to pick up already.’

  He hopes this is true. He may well have the first i
nstalment from Morrow by Monday. And two more after that. There’s no sign that he suspects anything. Ned keeps telling himself it’s for the best of reasons, that he’s nothing like the lowlife types who normally do this kind of thing. But each time he looks in the mirror he’s finding it harder to believe.

  On the hills across the bay, the windows of houses half hidden in the bush flash gold with the last of the sun. A violet haze is settling over the water. Angela sits with her e-reader balanced on one arm of the chair, occasionally looking up to take in the afterglow of sunset and the dark radiance of the approaching night. At the end of the jetty, Ned has his arm around Mai. It is good to see them looking content.

  Angela can’t help thinking that the pleasure of all this – the house, the view – must be bittersweet for Morrow. His marriage over, his children – if he has them – grown up and gone. Are there grandchildren, she wonders, who will care for the place when he’s gone? Then again, he might have lovers he brings here, might throw lavish parties, for all she knows. Just because he’s spared a weekend to be kind to a cripple doesn’t mean he has nothing better to do with his time. She needs to watch herself. It’s becoming a bad habit. Pitying others before they can pity her.

  In between turning sausages on the barbecue, he has been asking about her retreat, why she went and what it is about Buddhism that makes sense to her. ‘Tell me you don’t believe in reincarnation.’

  ‘I don’t. But I do believe in karma. Whatever you do comes back to haunt you, that kind of thing. A psychic reckoning, if you like. I see it in my patients all the time. The past catches up with all of us.’

  Morrow stiffens, crosses his arms as if to defend himself from the accusations he hears in her words. ‘In the form of punishment?’

  ‘Self-punishment, mostly.’

  ‘But—’ He stops and snaps the tongs together. ‘No, it doesn’t matter.’

  Angela laughs. ‘Ah, but it does. Ask me. I won’t be offended.’

  Smoke from the barbecue drifts between them. From behind this shifting screen, he plunges on. ‘If we bring things on ourselves, does that mean what happened to you is karma?’

  ‘My paralysis?’

  The smoke clears and he peers at her anxiously.

  Angela studies the speck of shaving cream on the ridge of his jaw. ‘When I said I believed in karma, I was talking about what goes on in our heads. I don’t mean we are accountable for the random events that befall us. And yet, wrong-headed as it might be, I do feel some responsibility for what happened. I can’t completely absolve myself. I didn’t love my husband and that tormented him. We should never have married.’ She forces herself to smile, her cheeks tight from the salty breeze. ‘Enough of this. It’s too beautiful an evening.’

  ‘Forgive me. I should never have asked.’ Morrow sniffs the air and turns to the barbecue. ‘Oh God, they’ll be charcoal.’

  Angela watches as he removes the steaks and sausages and piles them up on a plate.

  He tells her he’ll go call Ned and Mai.

  ‘No need. I already have.’ As she raises her phone to show him, her arm collapses and the phone falls to the ground.

  When Morrow hands it back, he can’t hide his concern. ‘That tumble you had in the water. Did it do something?’

  ‘I’m just tired.’

  He crouches beside her. ‘I have a friend, a specialist in spinal injuries. A surgeon.’ He mentions a name Angela recognises, one of the best. ‘How about I call him and make an appointment for you?’

  ‘Thank you, but it’s not necessary. I already have a specialist.’

  ‘Let me call my friend. For a second opinion.’

  She looks towards the cliff wishing Mai and Ned would come back. He is only trying to help, but this is not the kind of help she can afford. There’s no point wasting money on a second opinion when she knows what has to be done.

  Morrow stands up, resolute. ‘Let me see what he has to say.’ He pulls out his phone and turns away. The conversation goes on for some time. Finally, he turns back to her, smiling.

  ‘Done. He’ll see you on Monday.’

  ‘Monday?’ It seems impossible. Specialists are always booked up for months in advance.

  ‘And,’ Morrow adds, beaming, ‘he says that in a case like yours there’s an operation—’

  She cuts him short. ‘I know.’

  His face falls. She sees it finally hit him that she can’t afford it. He has been steamrolling ahead without thinking about how other people live.

  ‘This friend can do the operation as soon as you want, Angela. And it won’t cost you anything. He owes me a favour. Give it some thought. Will you do that?’

  Angela turns her face to the night sky. All those stars you don’t see in the city. What must it be like, she wonders, to pick up the phone and have your wishes granted? She doesn’t know whether to be furious or grateful.

  A burst of laughter floats out of the darkness of Millionaires Walk. They look up to see Ned and Mai crossing the lawn. Angela can’t face dinner. It would be painful for everyone, having to watch her. And she needs to think. Why is he doing this for her when they have only just met?

  ‘Mai,’ she says, when they are close enough to hear, ‘I’m not feeling too good. I need a lie down.’ She smiles apologetically at Morrow as Mai wheels her back to the house.

  Over dinner the wind picks up ahead of a squall. As a cold front moves in from the west, Morrow finds himself growing increasingly restless and glad of an excuse to hurry through the meal. Afterwards, he encourages Mai to go check on Angela and for Ned to retire to the boathouse, insisting that they leave the cleaning up to him.

  By now, the trees in the garden are thrashing as if wracked by some private distress. He is carrying the last of the dishes inside when a gust of wind slams the kitchen door shut behind him with an almighty bang. Loose plaster rains down from the cracks in the ceiling. The wind trapped inside swirls the lace curtains, paper napkins flutter to the floor. The whole place gives a drawn-out shudder and the jolt of it runs straight through him. At his feet, white powder rises like smoke.

  Rattled, he sweeps up the debris, the letter sitting in his head like something radioactive. Karma incarnate. A psychic reckoning. When he has thoughts like this he starts to wonder if he is losing his grip. Every fibre of him resists acquiescing to the blackmailer’s demands. His gut instinct is to brazen it out. Call the weasel’s bluff. But then what? Once things go public, nobody cares what really happened, the story takes on a life of its own. You’ve lost control.

  Before dinner, during his conversation with Angela, he couldn’t help entertaining the fear that she knew what her brother was up to – if he is up to anything. These thoughts will poison him, will do Morrow’s head in in a very short time if he isn’t careful. He reminds himself of Angela’s guileless question when they were down on the beach, about the shock of finding Ned in his boatshed. He thinks of her way of listening, her wry fortitude. Her sorrowful smile. The truth of his groundless suspicion is that he wants her to think well of him. He would like to know her better but could he stand her knowing him? Really knowing him? If word gets out, there’s every chance she will never speak to him again. But if he feeds the beast, there may never be an end to it, that’s how blackmailers operate. They tap a seam of gold and keep mining it. He could be paying for the rest of his life.

  The next morning, when Ned and Mai have gone to the shops, Morrow tells Angela he has something he would like to show her before she leaves. He leads her to the side of the house down a cracked concrete path to an entrance almost hidden by creeper and a rosemary hedge gone wild. The door opens to a dim, cavernous space. When he turns on the lights, she finds herself at the back of a small auditorium facing a low wooden stage encased by crimson curtains, their hem moth-eaten into a rocky coast.

  The air is cool and stale, and rising damp has created a tide line along the rough bluestone foundations. Angela looks around in amazement. How many houses have a theatre in the basement? />
  Morrow goes to a switchboard and slowly raises the footlights and she is conscious of the anticipation you feel when a show is about to begin.

  He comes and stands beside her. ‘Magical, isn’t it? My great-great-grandfather didn’t do things by halves. He was the first person to import white swans to this country, and deer and goldfish.’ He pauses for dramatic effect. ‘And rollerskates. He started the craze here.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  He laughs. ‘Would I make that up? People wanted the things from ‘Home’. Diversions. Novelties. So he built theatres and brought out famous actors. They came down here for his private gatherings. That was before he went into politics.’

  He looks wistfully at the stage. ‘I have something that might interest you. Will you humour me?’

  From a cupboard at the back of the room he brings out a projector and a can of film. He sets the projector on a wooden stool and threads the celluloid onto the empty reel. When the projector is set to go, he climbs the steps onto the stage and goes behind the curtain.

  Angela waits, almost expecting him to reappear in costume. The curtain opens jerkily to reveal a white screen on a stand. Morrow flicks off the lights. There is a ticking and crackling as a dusty white beam cuts through the darkness and numbers counting down from ten flash on the screen.

  The ghost of a boy is standing before them. He is about eleven years old, a bed sheet wrapped around him in the style of a toga, a laurel wreath made of ti-tree on his head. The soft-cheeked, round face has changed almost beyond recognition, except for the flinty blue eyes which stare resolutely across the years. He is standing on this same stage, which is empty except for a Doric pedestal with a bust of Caesar on top.