The old question arises. How stupid is Claude really? From the bathroom mirror he follows her thinking. He knows how to counter sentimentality in the matter of John Cairncross. He calls out, ‘They’ll be wanting to talk to that poet.’
Summoning her is a balm. Every cell in Trudy’s body concedes the death her husband owed. She hates Elodie more than she loves John. Elodie will be suffering. Blood-borne well-being sweeps through me and I’m instantly high, thrown forwards by a surfer’s perfect breaking wave of forgiveness and love. A tall, sloping, smoothly tubular wave that could carry me to where I might start to think fondly of Claude. But I resist it. How diminishing, to accept at second hand my mother’s every rush of feeling and be bound tighter to her crime. But it’s hard to be separate from her when I need her. And with such churning of emotion, need translates to love, like milk to butter.
She says in a sweet, reflective voice, ‘Oh yes, they’ll need to talk to Elodie.’ Then she adds, ‘Claude, you know I love you.’
But he doesn’t take this in. He’s heard it too often. Instead he says, ‘Wouldn’t mind being the proverbial fly on the wall.’
Oh proverbial fly, oh wall, when will he learn to speak without torturing me? Speaking’s just a form of thinking and he must be as stupid as he appears.
Emerging from the bathroom’s echo with a change of subject, he says lightly, ‘I might have found us a buyer. A long shot. But I’ll tell you later. Did the police leave their cards? I’d like to see their names.’
She can’t remember and nor can I. Her mood is shifting again. I think she’s staring at him fixedly as she says simply, ‘He’s dead.’
It is indeed a startling fact, barely believable, momentous, like a world war just declared, the prime minister speaking to the nation, families huddled together and the lights gone dim for reasons the authorities won’t disclose.
Claude is standing close by her, his hand is on her thigh as he draws her to him. They kiss at length, in deep with their tongues and tangled breath.
‘As a doornail,’ he murmurs into her mouth. His erection is hard against my back. Then, whispering, ‘We did it. Together. We’re brilliant together.’
‘Yes,’ she says between the kisses. It’s hard to hear for the rustling of clothes. Her enthusiasm may not be equal to his.
‘I love you, Trudy.’
‘And I love you.’
Something uncommitted about this ‘and’. When she advanced, he retreated, now the reverse. This is their dance.
‘Touch me.’ Not quite a command, for his pleading voice is small. She tugs on the zip. Crime and sex, sex and guilt. More dualities. The sinuous movement of her fingers is conveying pleasure. But not enough. He’s pressing on her shoulders, she’s going down on her knees, lowering herself, taking ‘him’, as I’ve heard them say, into her mouth. I can’t imagine wanting such a thing for myself. But it’s a lifted burden to have Claude satisfied many kindly inches away. It bothers me that what she swallows will find its way to me as nutrient, and make me just a little like him. Why else did cannibals avoid eating morons?
It’s over quickly, with barely a gasp. He steps back and secures his zip. My mother swallows twice. He’s offering nothing in return and I think she doesn’t want it. She steps past him, crosses the bedroom to the window and stands there, her back to the bed. I think of her gazing out towards the tower blocks. My unhappy dream of a future there is nearer now. She repeats quietly, more to herself, for he’s splashing once more in the bathroom, ‘He’s dead … dead.’ She doesn’t seem convinced. And after several seconds, in a murmur, ‘Oh God.’ Her legs are shaking. She’s about to cry, but no, this is too serious for tears. She has yet to comprehend her own news. The twinned facts are huge and she stands too close to see entirely the double horror: his death, and her part in it.
I hate her and her remorse. How did she step from John to Claude, from poetry to dribbling cliché? Step down to the nasty sty to roll in filth with her idiot-lover, lie in shit and ecstasy, plan a house-theft, inflict monstrous pain and a humiliating death on a kindly man. And now gasp and shiver at what she did, as if the murderess were someone else – some sad sister fled from the locked ward with poison on the brain, and out of control, an ugly, chain-smoking sister with sinister compulsions, the long-time family shame, to be sighed for with ‘Oh God’ and reverent whispering of my father’s name. There she goes, in seamless transit, on the very same day and without a blush, from slaughter to self-pity.
Claude appears behind her. The hands on her shoulders again are those of a man newly freed by orgasm, a man eager for practicalities and worldly speculation not compatible with a mind-fogging erection.
‘You know what? I was reading the other day. And I’ve just realised. It’s what we should have used. Diphenhydramine. Kind of antihistamine. People are saying the Russians used it on that spy they locked in a sports bag. Poured it into his ear. Turned up the radiators before they left so the chemical dissolved in his tissues without a trace. Dumped the bag in the bath, didn’t want fluids dripping on the neighbours in the flat below—’
‘That’s enough.’ She doesn’t say it sharply. More in resignation.
‘Dead right. Enough’s enough. We got there anyway.’ He croons a snatch. ‘They said you’re screwed, your act’s too crude, but we came throuuugh.’ The bedroom floorboards yield under my mother’s feet. He’s doing a little dance.
She doesn’t turn but stands very still. She’s hating him as much as I just hated her. Now he’s at her side, sharing the view, trying to find her hand.
‘Point is this,’ he says importantly. ‘They’ll interview us separately. We should be lining up our stories. So. He came round this morning. For coffee. Very depressed.’
‘I said we had a row.’
‘OK. When?’
‘Just as he was leaving.’
‘What about?’
‘He wanted me to move out.’
‘Good. So. He came round this morning. For coffee. Very depressed and—’
She sighs, as I would. ‘Look. Tell everything as it was, minus the smoothies, plus the row. It doesn’t need a rehearsal.’
‘OK. This evening. This evening, I’ll do the cups, the lot. Across three locations. Another thing. He was wearing gloves the whole time.’
‘I know.’
‘And when you do the kitchen, not an atom of smoothie to—’
‘I know.’
He leaves her side to take a turn, a shuffle about the room. He senses success, he’s restless, itchy, excited. That she isn’t too boosts his impatience. There are things to do, and if not, things to plan. He wants to be out there. But where? He’s half humming, half singing something new. ‘Baby, baby I love you …’ I’m not reassured. He’s back by us, and she’s rigid by the window, but he doesn’t sense the danger.
‘On the sale,’ he says, breaking off his song. ‘In my heart of hearts, I always thought we might need to take less than market price just in case we have to make a quick—’
‘Claude.’
She mutters his name on two notes, the second lower than the first. A warning.
But he pushes on. I’ve never known him happier, or less likeable. ‘This guy’s a builder, a developer. Doesn’t even need to look around. Square footage is all. Flats, see. And cash in—’
She turns. ‘Are you not even aware?’
‘Of what?’
‘Are you really so incredibly stupid?’
The very question. But Claude has switched moods too. He can sound dangerous.
‘Let’s hear it.’
‘It’s escaped your attention.’
‘Clearly.’
‘Today, just a few hours ago.’
‘Yes?’
‘I lost my husband—’
‘No!’
‘The man I once loved, and who loved me, and who shaped my life, gave meaning to it …’ A clenching in the sinews of her throat prevents her saying more.
But Claude is launched. ‘My darling little mouse, that’s terrible. Lost, you say. Where could you have put him? Where did you have him last? You must have put him down somewhere.’
‘Stop it!’