If I Should Die (3 page)

“Mother would be so proud,” he told his friends.

He often spoke to them about his mother. He had lost her a long time ago, and he had waited interminable, patient decades to punish those he blamed for that loss.

“She taught me many things,” he told them, softly. “But there were three rules of life more important than the rest. Mother’s Rules of Life. Identity – knowing and
never losing sight of who I was and where I sprang from. Self-control . . .”

It was his litany, repeated daily, sometimes aloud, often silently, in his mind. Self-control meant denial and suffering, sometimes even humiliation, but without it you were lost.

“And the third rule.” He regarded his friends with benign tolerance. “Never to forget the existence of dragons.”

They’d heard it all before, many times, but they never seemed to grow bored and, after all, they couldn’t have complained if they were. The man often talked to them about dragons,
sometimes for hours on end. They were out there, he said. Outside the room, in the city, in the country, all over the world.

“Mother told me once that she lost self-control for a while – early in her life – and the dragons were out there, waiting to pounce. They take many forms, but they’re
always out there, always waiting.’

His music was playing, his beloved Wagner.
Götterdämmerung
– ‘Twilight of the Gods’. His mother’s favourite. All about heroes and dragons, about
Siegfried, the dragon slayer.

“She called me her little hero.” He lay back on the reclining leather chair and closed his eyes, remembering. He’d squashed a dragonfly when he was six, and that was when
she’d begun calling him her little Siegfried. Dragonflies were known as the devil’s darning needle, she’d told him, because they could sew up the eyes and ears and mouth of a
sleeping child. Mother had admired heroism more than anything.

He opened his eyes and looked at his friends in their glass enclosures. His own little captive dragons. Nine of them. Five
gekkonidae
. Two
iguanidae
. And the most dangerous,
his favourites,
helodermae suspectum
, the two Gila monsters. Each family lived in its own vivarium, required its own special environment, set up so that each home had areas of light and
shade. The man had provided no large rocks or tunnels for them to hide in, for they were there for his pleasure, for him to observe, to master.

He had felt intense fear when he’d first brought them to the room. The first time he’d touched one of them, he had experienced such revulsion and terror that he had vomited. But once
he had placed them safely into their vivaria, a new excitement had begun to replace the revulsion. Touching them now, sometimes, brought him to erection. He suspected that the greatest elation of
all might come from killing them, but for now, at least, he chose to dominate them instead, and to practise self-control.

He tried not to think too much about the terrible days, such a long time ago yet still so clear in his mind. The night he had lost her, when they had robbed him of her, when he
had become aware that her breathing had ceased and that she had left him. And then those other days, worse even than the loss itself, when they had humiliated her, when they had laughed.

If he thought about it now, the pain was still intolerable, and he would have to punish himself to expunge the agony from his mind. Sometimes, he would use his fingernails to gouge into his
flesh – always on his lower abdomen or on his buttocks, so that no one would see what he had done – and sometimes he used lighted cigarettes to burn himself. He never smoked, but he
still bought the same brand of cigarettes that she had liked, partly because he needed the aroma to help himself, partly because she had used them to correct him. Very seldom, of course, for Mother
had nearly always been kind to him, almost an angel really, and if she had found it necessary to administer a little discipline, then he knew that it was just as necessary for him to continue.

Their punishment had been a long time in coming, but now the time had come. Those who had killed her, those who had humiliated her, those who had laughed, at her, at him, would all pay now. And
innocents, too, would suffer, but that was unavoidable. Sad, but inevitable.

The man stared out of the window, into the dark, snowy night.

He wondered if it had begun.

On icy winter mornings like this one, Sean and Marie Ferguson liked nothing better than having their breakfast in bed. Not that they needed to stay under the covers to keep
warm, since their townhouse on North Lincoln Square in Chicago’s near north side was as lavishly heated as it was furnished and decorated; but with Marie fully occupied with her patients for
between ten and fifteen hours a day, Sean liked keeping his wife as physically close as possible every moment he could, and besides, the sunny Renoir painting that hung over the fireplace directly
opposite their bed made them both feel spiritually summery every morning of their lives.

“How’re you feeling?” Sean looked across at his wife, just pouring her second cup of lemon tea.

“Great.”

“Really?”

Marie smiled at him. “Really.”

“No symptoms?”

“Not a single one.” She spread honey on a slice of rye toast. “You have to stop worrying about me, Sean. We’ve all told you and told you, there’s really no
need.”

“It’s only been three weeks.”

“And I’m trying to forget about it.”

“I know you are. I’m sorry.” Sean looked penitent.

“No need to apologize for loving me. It’s just that I wish you’d believe that I’m feeling one hundred per cent okay.”

“Honestly?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“Don’t
say
things like that.”

Marie was the only child of William B. Howe, a multimillionaire industrialist and fine art collector whose wife had died in childbirth. Marie’s father had expected his
fair-haired, green-eyed daughter either to take over his business empire or to marry suitably, preferably a man of sufficient means to complement and expand the Howe fortune. Marie, however, had
confounded her father by insisting on studying medicine and then specializing in obstetrics. Upon his death, she had inherited the house on North Lincoln Square which she loved for its beauty and
its happy childhood memories, but she had sold two other major properties, one in San Francisco and the other in Newport, Rhode Island, in order to fund the creation of the Howe Clinic in the
Rogers Park district. Her partner, John Morrissey, a cardiologist, shared Marie’s ideals. The clinic was luxurious and scrupulously well run, its fees on average no lower than most similar
establishments, but it was not unusual for more than one room at a time to be occupied by impecunious patients, and Marie had been known to look after women from first pre-natal to final post-natal
checks without charging a single cent.

Her marriage to Sean Ferguson five years earlier had raised the collective eyebrows of the extended Howe family to even greater heights. Her husband was a writer – part journalist, part
poet, part novelist of modest success – a passionate, dark-eyed man who adored and admired his wife unreservedly. He knew that the father-in-law he had never met would have disapproved of him
intensely, but Sean never held that against William Howe’s memory, for he knew that Marie had loved her father deeply. He was also aware that most of Howe’s contemporaries, and many of
Marie’s, suspected him of having married for money, but both he and his wife knew those suspicions were wholly unfounded, and Sean didn’t give a damn what anyone else thought. He would
gladly have lived with Marie in a tent, but he had enough common sense to realise that the old Howe home was infinitely more comfortable and aesthetically pleasing, and Sean did not believe in
depriving his wife for some idiotic, senseless male pride.

Until that day just over three weeks ago, Sean had never seen Marie sick. She’d had the occasional light cold, of course, but nothing more significant, not even the flu
two years back when he and most of Chicago had crashed with it. When she’d developed the sudden irregular tachycardiac heartbeat that John Morrissey had explained might become lethal unless
they fitted her with a pacemaker, Sean had been terrified despite Marie’s calm. She understood the wonders of modern pacing, knew that she could go on to lead a perfectly normal life even to
the point of delivering twins at four in the morning, but Sean was so panicked by the description of what needed to be done, so anguished at the very idea of a thoracic surgeon being called in,
that Marie and Morrissey had both banished him from the room while the procedure was carried out. Ten days later, after the surgeon, technicians, nurses and John Morrissey himself had all sworn
that Marie was no longer at any risk, that everything was fine, perfectly fine, and that they could both go home and forget all about it, Sean had begun to allow himself to be persuaded. But while
Marie regularly pleaded with him to allow her to forget all about it, her husband could not imagine that he would ever be able to obliterate it from his own mind.

“Are you ever going to make love to me again?” Marie had asked him last night, just after he’d turned the light out.

“Of course I am.”

“How about now?”

“I’m a little tired right now, sweetheart.”

“I don’t think you’re a bit tired.”

“Sure I am.”

“I think you’re still scared.”

“Of what?”

“Of giving me a heart attack.”

“That’s crazy, Marie.”

“I know that, but do you?”

Sean had not answered.

“You still don’t believe what John told us about getting back to normal, do you?” In the dark, Marie’s voice sounded even, but her upset showed through. “He said I
could do anything and everything I used to do – exercise, work, sex – everything.”

“I know what he said.”

“But you don’t believe it.”

“Of course I do – I know John wouldn’t lie, not about you – not about anything, but especially not about you – ”

“But?”

“But you’re right. I am scared.” Sean stared into the dark, holding her hand tightly. “I’m so afraid I might hurt you, and I’m sorry for that, and I love
making love to you more than almost anything, but I’d sooner go without for the rest of my life than risk your health.”

“Well, I wouldn’t,” Marie said firmly. “Even if there was a risk, which there isn’t.”

“How would you feel if it was me with the problem?”

“That’s just it, Sean, I don’t have a problem any more.” Marie sat up and turned on her bedside lamp. “But if you’d had the pacemaker fitted instead of me,
and if I’d heard everything John told you, I’d be just as horny right now as I already am.”

Sean grinned. “Are you?”

“Of course I am. Aren’t you?”

“No.”

Marie craned her head to look at his face. “I think you’re lying. You’re always horny when I am.”

“Not tonight,” Sean said, still smiling. “I’m too tired.”

The problem was that she was dead right, that he did want her just as much as she wanted him, as much as he’d always done – that not touching her, hardly even
kissing her in case things got out of hand, was driving him half crazy. He’d gone to sleep the night before longing for her, and he’d woken up this morning with an erection, and he knew
that Marie had been caressing him while he slept, and he only got out of trouble again by insisting that he, instead of Hilda, their housekeeper, was going to make breakfast for her, because she
liked his scrambled eggs better than Hilda’s.

“Are you writing today?” Marie asked him, after she’d eaten the last of her rye toast. Her appetite had always been good, and though it had dipped a little a few weeks back,
even Sean had to admit that her enjoyment seemed back to normal.

“Not till this afternoon,” he said, leaning back against his pillows. “I’m going to drive you to the clinic this morning and then go look at the lake for a while.”
He often strolled or just stood for hours, staring into Lake Michigan’s vastness, seeking inspiration for a story or a poem.

“So you’re in no particular hurry?”

“No hurry at all,” he said, lazily. “Why? Something you need?”

“If it’s no trouble,” Marie said, politely.

“You know better than that.” And it was true, for Sean never tired of doing things for his wife, didn’t even mind going shopping with her, loved waiting around for her when she
bought dresses or shoes, though shopping with Marie couldn’t have been less trouble, since she was almost always in a rush to get back to the clinic, or to visit a patient at home.

“Then there is something I need,” Marie said, still carefully polite.

“Sure.” Sean looked at her. She looked especially beautiful this morning, even in the harsh January light. She was wearing one of her pale green silk nightdresses, cut low in the
front in a V-shape, the lines softened by lace and by the warm swell of her breasts. He realized suddenly that she had not been wearing that nightdress before he’d gone down to the kitchen to
make their eggs.

“Don’t you want to know what I need?” Marie asked.

His mouth was dry. He knew perfectly well now what she needed, and the damnedest part of it was that he was rock hard again, and she just looked so pretty, her curly fair hair falling so sweetly
around her face, she just looked so completely
well
– and maybe it was time to believe her and John, and maybe they could get back to normal, and if she could, then who was he to
risk ruining their happiness, the ongoing wonder of their marriage?

“I know,” he said, and his voice was husky.

“Please, Sean.”

“Are you sure?” His arms ached to hold her, his mouth yearned to kiss her breasts.

“You know I am.”

“And you’re certain it’s safe?” He knew she’d won, knew he was seconds away from slipping his hand inside that soft silk nightdress.

She didn’t answer this time, just moved closer to him, close enough to brush her hair against his cheek, knowing how much he loved that. And Sean closed his eyes and breathed her in,
smelled her fragrance, and then his arms were around her, gently, then more fiercely, and then they were kissing, and it was as though all the fears were being extinguished by their kisses. Marie
took his right hand and guided it to her left breast, and he felt its roundness, its warmth and softness, and its hard, wondrous nipple, and the last of the fears disappeared, and she helped him
pull the nightdress up over her head, tousling her hair, and she tugged at the cord of his pyjama trousers, and they began making love, and it was like coming home after a war or something, and she
felt and smelled and tasted like sweet heaven on earth . . .