Sheer Blue Bliss (27 page)

Door opening, light coming on, throwing a trapezoid of light through the trap-door on to the ceiling and the wall. Giving Patrick back his eyes.

‘I don't understand …' This the female voice.

‘I don't fucking well appreciate being followed.'

‘… not like that, I thought it would be a nice surprise.'

‘Yeah.'

‘You said you'd ring. I was up seeing my mum, I just thought.'

‘Christ.'

‘You said where you were going.'

‘Keep your fucking voice down.'

Quiet. After a pause the girl's voice subdued. ‘Sorry. I just thought it would be nice to see you again.'

Quiet again. Connie groans as loud as she can but there is no effect. She lifts her heels but the pain in her back is too much, she can't bear to crash them down again. It's all right, Con. Help is here. Just listen and wait. Wait.

‘Now what?' his voice belligerent, making her feel foolish, no doubt, whoever she is, down in Connie's kitchen.

‘I won't stay if you don't want …' something else muttered. Speak up, girl. Something familiar about that voice. Someone she met in London, or just one of those well-bred types? ‘Brought wine and brought flowers for … where is she?'

‘Asleep.'

Whatever does he think she's thinking up here? Doesn't he know she can hear, that she will make a noise, attract attention? Her tongue wriggles a space between her lips and the tape. Forcing air out between her lips she makes a guttural sound, loud, loud enough, surely, for the girl to hear.

‘Can't we just have a glass … in water … a vase?' Sounds of movement, the plop of bottle being uncorked. The judder of the pipes, water, the rustle of paper and a faint greenish chrysanthemum smell. Thirst in her throat and right through to her bowels. The pills and the whisky and this fog seem to suck her dry.

Awful thought. Push it away. He said he killed a girl. But that was surely bluff.

She is talking down there, her voice too quiet to hear properly. But she's asking him something about writing, something about a book. So he
is
a journalist then, or writer, and she believed that he wasn't. Getting dull, Con. Maybe his madness is a pose? To see if he could get the elixirs for his newspaper – what do they call that, a scoop. But too well done – and if it's a pretence why tie her up? She sucks air in through her nose and groans again. She wants to shout,
Run
.

‘See I'm not … ring a cab … maybe I'll just …' The sound of a chair grating. The door.

‘NO!' A shout but then his voice warms, changes colour. ‘No, stay. Sorry, Lisa. It's nice to see you. Not good at surprises is all. All right?' Long pause. ‘All right?'

She gives a shrug of a laugh. ‘Mobile's not working, anyway. Shit. No phone here, is there?'

‘No, looks like you're stuck.' The door closes again.

‘Oh dear.'

‘What
shall
we do?'

‘Better make the most of it, I guess. I feel a bit bad about being here uninvited – and when she's asleep.'

‘It's cool.'

The sound of heels on the lino. ‘I like it here, don't you? I do like all these shells! The way she's stuck them on the walls. Kitsch or what?'

‘Yeah, well.'

‘Let's have more wine then? Tell me about … but mustn't wake …' her voice quietening. The scrape of a match on a matchbox and the whiff of a freshly lit fag.

Another moan. Why can't they hear her? Fog closing again but browner and not so warm, still it muffles the pain which is coming everywhere now, back, neck, shoulders, wrists, heels, ankle bones. No, don't dwell and itemize your every pain. Light coming up and Patrick not in his portrait now, it's just canvas and he's hanging a little way away beside it. The light shining up makes a bright streaming navy-blue of the skylight under rain. On the floor is its reflection like a pool, dark shadow drops trickling across the blue.

They murmur on down there and only some words can she hear, sometimes a laugh, female, nervous. Listen, there's the girl's name.
Lisa
, heard that before. Tony's voice louder than hers but saying nothing of any significance. Connie tries to concentrate but her mind buckles under the weight of … everything, the shock, yes, the phrase
in shock
comes to her, surely that's what she must be in. Shock. This odd indiscipline of mind, inability to concentrate even though it might make the difference between life and death. But she swings dizzily between lucid and not, lucid is pain and the other is not and which is worse? Helpless, helpless. Go back then, go back to memory. She tries, a moment of Patrick with his arms around her, face against his living chest, warm, warm and beating but then it's cold and then it's gone.

Quiet now downstairs. She moans again, the damp space on the tape loosening against her breath, the stick giving, soon, soon, she will have a voice. The girl, Lisa, says, ‘What was that?'

‘What?'

‘I heard something.'

‘Nothing.'

‘It wasn't nothing.'

‘Must've been Benson then, dreaming, snoring. I don't know.'

‘Funny kind of snoring.'

‘Come here.'

‘Tony!' A giggle, delighted. What are they doing? Connie hums loudly, this is the way to make a noise, loud hum, the tape vibrates, unbearable tickle against her lips, she tries to bring her wrists up to free her mouth but they are swaddled in the sleeping bag. Patiently, patiently, if she works with her tongue and blows and hums against the tape she will free her mouth.

‘That's never snoring.'

‘Hey, let me …'

‘No, just a minute. Is it her? What's up?'

‘You want it?'

‘No.'

‘What you here for then?'

‘Tony, stop it, no.'

Connie bangs her heels feeling her mind shatter into stars of pain that brighten up the attic for a flash, tries to pull herself up from the chair but falls back, moans loud as she can against the horror of hearing this, heart banging in time with the explosions in her heels.

‘No.
Please.'
Sounds of scuffling, a chair falling. ‘Tony, no, please.'

‘Shut the fuck up.'

‘Aaah!' Surprised pain. NO. Constance fights against the tape on her mouth, nothing will give, she can make a noise now but what good is a noise? Something smashes down there, plate or glass all sharp on the floor. She winces at the thought of soft flesh on the shards of it.

‘All right, all right, there's no need … I won't fight …' the girl's voice gone high like a child's.

‘No, you won't fight, fucking tart.'

‘Please.'
Now she's crying. The sound of something tearing.
‘Mummy,'
she sobs,
‘oh God.'
Tears come into Connie's eyes, useless, useless. A grunt from him, oh no please no he's raping her, raping her and there's nothing Connie can do. Patrick is hovering over the trap-door, clear navy-blue with the raindrops streaming through him. Connie looks at the empty canvas but there is no help there, empty face of a dead man, long, long gone. Nothing Connie can do and if he is raping the girl maybe he will kill her, too. Kill them both. The fog no longer warm but icy. The girl's sobs and the voice of the man, grunting, grunting, like some animal. If Connie could put her hands over her ears she would but there is no escape from what will follow. She lowers her wrists against her lap and lets them lie on the soft pillow of hair, all she's kept, that and the portrait of Patrick shorn.

A crash, a slam. It is finished. Connie shudders, fear and cold combined, and shock yes,
in shock
, tremors that shake her bone against raw bone. Are they gone, both? Or only him? The girl, is she still there?

How long can you sit in the quiet and dark without sleeping? Despite the horror and the pain, Connie does sleep. Even dreams something vague about fish. How can she sleep after all that … She wakes, feeling immediately guilty. How long? Some bird crying despite the night – only the sky has lightened. So considerable time gone. Giddiness. No fog. Pain. The memory of the dreadful night plain now the fog has gone, like sunshine on a bomb site, the rising stench of ruin. Long, long quiet.

Then Connie hears the sound of the door, footsteps, the floor vibrating as Tony sets foot on the ladder. The shadow of a gull over the skylight seems to take a long long time. She huddles down smaller and smaller, her insides screwing tight.

And his face is there, face white, eyes red. He does not look her in the eye but looks her over, checking for life, perhaps. His eyes are like those of a child woken from a nightmare to find it real and of his own making. He says nothing, goes down again. She can hear a lumping about down there and then he comes back up the ladder with the body of the young woman, head lolling, hair fair on his shoulder against the black of his own. For a second she is struck by the contrast and shocked at herself for noticing. He lugs her up, struggles her body in through the trap-door, shoves her away from the edge. Her short black dress is ripped at the hem, the skin white on one bare leg, the other still clad in black nylon, the loose leg of a pair of tights trails from between her legs like some awful limp birth. Her cheek slides along the floor over the dust and the dead wasps.

Tony stands over the prone girl. ‘Help,' Connie says, manages to say almost audibly. Her heart beats very fast and small like dripping water. He turns and she looks into his eyes but it's like looking through the windows of a burnt-out house, there's nothing there but ash. His lips open as if he'd say a word then close again. She feels almost, almost sorry for him. He suddenly reaches his hands towards Connie who cowers, screws up her eyes, retreats into and into herself for surely this is it. But all he does is pull away the sleeping bag, spread it on the floor and tip the girl on to it. Then he's gone, the door banging, really gone this time.

But Connie is bound up and Lisa may or may not be dead and Connie can do nothing but make useless sounds against the tape. It is all so bright as the sun comes out. It glints on the taut wires of pain threaded through her bones. Each speck on the floor, each insect casts a shadow larger than itself, the thin shadows of wings like cellophane, dust motes glitter in the air. Another perfect morning. The girl lies still, blood clotted in the fair fluffy hair, and there is nothing
nothing
Connie can do.

ELEVEN

Tony trudges along, eyes screwed up against sharp spears of light. His eyes water from such brightness, sun puddled on the rippled sand. Waves wash up and down, up and down, like nothing's happened. The rucksack is heavy on his back. He turns to look back at the trail of footprints that lead from between the dunes and along the beach. Now what?

Starched sheets. That's it. Hold on, Tony, don't lose it now. You didn't kill. She wasn't dead. Breath on your neck when you lifted her. Warmth. You can smell life and she smelled of it. She got what she came for is all. Bitch. So shut up. Cold and clean this morning. It seems to be a lovely day. What next, though? What?

Starched sheets and clean clothes and go back. Not good to go backwards but … there was security there. It
was
a life. And Donna next door with her candy soft bed. No harm there. A girly bed with her harmless books beside it, Bible, all the things in her bathroom: perfumes, creams to dip your finger in and sniff, the stuff in her drawers, underwear, white slippers with bunny ears.

He bends down, the rucksack nearly overbalancing him, to pick up a shell. Walks along fingering it, rough and dry on the outside, spiralled: a whelk? Very pointed at the tip, presses his finger on it till it hurts. Almost trips over a sand-castle. He stands amazed. Someone with a bucket and spade has built a castle. When? Too good for a child's castle, it's huge and complicated. Many buckets of sand turned out neatly, some of them crenellated – one of those fancy buckets they must have had. He has a sudden memory of banging a spade on the bottom of a bucket to turn out the sand. This is perfect. No messy broken edges. Someone took their time over this. Someone cared about it, decorated it with shells, those little pink-and-white ones and strips of bright green weed. When was a person here building a sand-castle? He lifts his foot to smash it. But stops. Instead, he presses his shell on to the top to make a little peak and walks away, quick.

Sails out there, lots of sails, some race? Like wings, pink, yellow, green, the sun on them. Gulls on the water, the air fresh as … as milk cold from the doorstep with those beads of moisture on the bottle that tell you it's really cold. That's what he needs, to drink something pure and cold and white to fill his hot dark insides. Those wings out there, so childish bright. School milk kept by the radiator, all clotted warm through paper straws. Who was it used to blow in his till it frothed up from the bottle, slimy white? The sour smell of old milk on his jumper. No.

He needs something cold and absolutely clean. His hands stink of woman. Did wash them under the tap but still that smell, can't stand it, dark private stink. Squatting, he rinses them in the sea but the ripples come up to his trainers. Mustn't get them wet. Can't take them off what with his cut foot. Could swim like yesterday, was it only yesterday? Yesterday someone else built a castle on the beach. And that makes him gasp with loneliness.

Is it over then? No elixirs. No saving, is there to be no saving? No Seven Steps to Bliss. Did he ever believe that, really? Worse now than ever. There's nothing. But it's all right. They won't die and no one will ever find him, not stupid, didn't give them his address, not stupid you could never say that.

But Patrick has let him down. Led him to this. To this … to this fiasco, this end of a … quest. And now what?

He looks back at the castle which casts a long fancy shadow in the early morning sun. All he can do is go forward. Make a plan. Walk to the village, bus to King's Lynn, train to London, tube to Brixton. Home. Safe.