Lying Together (14 page)

‘You see, I'm in what they call a downward spiral, Stephen. It's ever so easy, but you lose things on the way. Here, there. Your life shrinks. They took my tapes – my
Catulli
, my Verdi, my Puccini. Can you imagine what that did to me? Negative thoughts, they said. It wasn't though, was it? You know that. But I cope without them. You have to, you see.' She eyed the bag. ‘I've got more stuff, but I had to leave things behind. Otherwise they would have known. They would have stopped me. I'm not ready, they said. But I tried to be sensible. Practical. A kettle. Some saucepans. I've come to the end of the line, now. I've been in too many places, Stephen, and you're my last chance. I've sort of burned my boats, now. I can't go back –'

Stephen felt confused. Who on earth were these people she was talking about? Possessive husbands? Violent lovers? Relatives of some sort? ‘There must have been someone else you could have turned to,' he said. ‘Someone closer to you, surely.'

She shook her head. ‘Another
man
you mean? Surprise you, does it, Stephen, that there isn't one?' She reached for her coat, got out the almost empty pack of cigarettes, raised herself on her elbow and sat still for a moment. Her throaty voice trembled. ‘I've had enough, Stephen. If I have to go back, I'll end it all. Seriously.'

I feel like ending it all!
Another mantra. Especially when she'd been mixing it. Dope and booze and God knows what else. He'd held back her beautiful dark hair while she'd vomited into his basin, made her drink plenty of water, and put her to bed on her side. The next morning,
La Traviata
would be blaring out, and Morella would have forgotten everything, chuckling and saying, ‘I have a feeling I was a bit skanky last night.'

Morella fumbled a cigarette into her mouth, dropped it in her lap, then started to shake: ‘Oh, shit! Shit, shit!' She started to cry. Stephen moved over to sit beside her, put his arm around her. He got a shock as his fingers touched her ribs; she was even thinner than his ten-year-old. He found himself slipping into the soothing croon he'd used with Morella all those years ago: ‘It's all right, it's all right.' He never seemed to need such words to comfort Sue. Sue was strong, sensible, sorted:
If you really want to help, Stephen, make me a cup of tea.
She'd probably be making tea now, a quick cup as she prepared vegetables to go with whatever she'd got ready the night before, covered in cling film in the fridge. No special Valentine supper for them:
We're not kids
. He could see her standing at the kitchen worktop, apron neatly tied over her navy blue office suit. He ought to ring her, explain how late he was going to be. But he needed to stay with Morella too. He felt her thin body shivering beneath his arm. He couldn't leave her now, not even to pick up the phone.

‘So what is this awful thing that's been happening to you? That's got you into this state?' He took his handkerchief, wiped her cheeks. ‘You know, I've never heard
anything
about you all these years. Not a thing. I thought you must have gone somewhere exciting – the States perhaps. Hollywood.'

‘Oh, Stephen, I wish that were true.'

‘So you've been in London all along?' He felt annoyed. How could she have kept away from him all this time?

‘No, I've only been here a couple of months. Moved around twice in that time. They make it difficult, you know. I was in Edinburgh first. Then Leeds. Then somewhere near Birmingham. Always the same, though. Do this, do that. Points for this, points off for that. Oh, Stephen, I was being crushed. When I saw you yesterday it was like a vision, like you really did have angel wings, like you were going to lift me up from all of this –'

‘Morella –'

‘They didn't trust me, you see. They watched me all the time. No locks. Couldn't even pee in private. Can you believe that?'

‘Well, I …' He began to wonder if she was actually insane.

She turned and grasped his arms. ‘Would you say I'm a risk, Stephen?'

‘Of course not.' He wished he could sound more convinced.

‘They say it's in the past. But they don't let you get away from it. Ever.'

‘Who doesn't? From what? Morella, you're not making sense!'

She paused; a long pause, looking up at the ceiling. ‘What would you say if I told you that I'd murdered someone?'

Stephen's heart jumped. He looked sideways at her profile, the way her features were so sweetly, so innocently composed. ‘You're not serious?'

‘You know I never lie.'

He thought maybe it was an accident. Morella could be overdramatic in her use of words at times. Although he had an awful feeling it was more likely to be a
crime passionnel
. ‘What happened?'

‘Sharp knife. Opportunity. One, two. Finish.' She mimed a stabbing action. He saw her as Lady Macbeth, the triumph of the year, the rave reviews, the seal set on her bid for fame. She'd been very convincing:
Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers!
She sighed. She seemed calmer, as if a weight had been lifted from her. She picked up the unlit cigarette from her lap, looked at it carefully as if it were a museum piece. In a reflective tone she said: ‘You know, I absolutely lived for these things when I was locked up.'

‘You were in prison?' That was one reason he'd never considered to explain her absence from the West End.

‘Secure hospital. Same difference. Except the sentence never ends. You have to earn your freedom, and somehow I never had the knack …'

‘Oh, Morella! Why didn't I know?' It was as if he'd had no right to enjoy himself all these years, to have holidays, to laugh. ‘Why didn't anyone tell me?'

She shrugged. ‘It was in the Scottish papers:
Cambridge graduate on murder charge
– then months while they tried to work out if I was mad or bad. Do you think I'm mad, Stephen?'

He thought she conceivably might be. She'd always been volatile, extreme. He tried to think of a way to answer her, but couldn't. There was silence. Then he asked, ‘Who was it – the man you stabbed? It
was
a man, I suppose?'

‘What difference is it to you, Stephen?'

‘I'm just trying to understand.'

She sighed. ‘You're as bad as they are. Wanting to “understand” all the time. To get inside me. To get under my skin. I've said it over and over – he was just sitting there at the kitchen table. Horrible and thick and blubbery, and so bloody pleased with himself. I just picked up the knife and did it. It was quite easy, really. If he was sitting here now I'd do it again.
Put out the light, and then put out the light!
'

Stephen cogitated. ‘A boyfriend, then?'

‘No – hardly.' She drew for a long time on the cigarette, brushed away some ash from her skinny lap. ‘All right, if you want to know, Stephen, he was my stepfather. My mother's husband.'

‘Your stepfather?' It was the first time she had ever mentioned any of her family. She'd always seemed so blithely independent he'd never thought the omission at all odd, as if she'd sprung into adulthood like Athena, fully formed; no bourgeois antecedents, nothing so commonplace as family.

She gave him a sideways look: ‘Rory Lennox. You met him, in fact.'

‘I did?' Stephen had no recollection of it.

‘That first night of
Macbeth
.'

He remembered the fleshy, older man she'd taken up to her room. Someone she had introduced by his first name. Not one of her usual sort: ‘I thought he was –' He reddened. ‘I mean, I didn't realize he was
related
to you.'

‘He wasn't. Not one drop of consanguineous blood. As he was always pointing out.'

Stephen stared stupidly, remembering the man's clammy ownership of Morella, his own impotent jealousy as he'd spirited her away upstairs. The full horror of it struck him with force.

She grimaced. ‘Yes, you're right. See what a five-star slut I am. But I had my limits. I told him that night. I said it was all over. He said he knew I'd change my mind when I'd thought about it. When I thought over all that was involved, with my mother's heart being “so very weak”.'

Stephen recalled the sinister adult certainty of the man, the frisson of fear he'd aroused with his heavy presence next morning at the breakfast table, Morella in her dressing gown meekly making him toast.

‘I called his bluff, Stephen. I said I didn't care; that I was moving to London and that was that. I didn't think he'd tell my mother. It hardly made him look good, after all. But he rang me, the week we finished Finals. You and Ian were out getting pissed and I was on my own. He said my mother was in hospital. Heart failure, he said.
Something must have given her a shock.
So I just got on a train to Edinburgh as quickly as I could. Sorry, Stephen. Sorry I didn't think to leave you a note. Bigsby said he'd tell you …' Tears started to roll from Morella's eyes.

Stephen cursed Bigsby. How had he managed to forget such a message? ‘And had he told your mother, this Rory?'

‘I don't know, Stephen. She was dead before I got there.' Morella was weeping loudly now. ‘She was all laid out on the hospital bed. I looked at her, Stephen, and I imagined that she'd died thinking I was the worst daughter in the world …'

Stephen gave her a little squeeze. ‘You don't know she thought that. He probably didn't tell her anything. After all, why would he? It was his fault. Much more his fault. He was supposed to protect you, not seduce you, for God's sake.'

She shook her head. ‘It still felt like my fault. I went a little bit mad, then, taking stuff – uppers and downers; anything I could lay my hands on. It was Rory who looked after me. He was good at that sort of thing; had done it with my mother for years. I thought he was being a proper father to me at last, cooking my meals, keeping the pills away. But it didn't last. One day he put his hand on my tits and said it was payback time. Then I knew it was him or me, and I just picked up the knife.'

‘You should have come to me. I would have looked after you.' He stroked her hair – her poor, chopped, shorn hair. Its ugly, rough ends made him want to weep.

‘The last thing I wanted was anyone being
kind
, Stephen. I couldn't have borne kindness.' She looked up, wiped her eyes. ‘Some days I woke up and thought I was back in Madingley Road, and everything was simple again. You, Ian, Bigsby, Paul, Martin, Gavin.' She smiled, then turned, suddenly: ‘Do you still see them?'

‘Not really.' She didn't query this, didn't seem surprised he hadn't kept in touch. He added inconsequentially, ‘Although I
did
run into Tom about a year back. He's doing very well.'

‘Yes, Stephen. He would be.'

Stephen remembered how the subject of Morella had come up; how Tom had laughed his confident barrister's laugh, saying she was
too neurotic by half
. As he'd laughed back, Stephen had pictured Tom and Morella fumbling and thrusting in broad daylight in an alleyway behind the Green Dragon. He'd recalled it with devastating exactitude, like every occasion on which he had seen Morella disappear from a room with someone else's boyfriend, or return home in the smudged and creased garments of the night before. He ventured: ‘He's a bit of a prick.'

Morella laughed bitterly. ‘Always was.'

There was a silence. Stephen, driven by some envious demon, said, ‘But you fucked him all the same.'

She shrugged, eyes wide open. ‘I fucked lots of people.'

‘Why?'

‘Why not?'

‘Because you didn't love any of them.'

‘Oh,
love.
It's so much balls, Stephen, you know that?' Her eyes flicked over the cone of flowers lying on the bed. ‘Or maybe not in your case. Maybe you're one of the lucky ones, with your Sweet Sue. I expect you're faithful to her, as well.'

‘I try to be.' He'd never even been tempted to stray. But he felt on a knife-edge now.

‘Always the honourable man. You never overstepped the mark, did you, Stephen? Even when I was half-naked on your bed.'

‘I was supposed to be your friend, remember? The one you could trust.' She frowned. ‘I know I
said
that, Stephen. But – well, I wasn't conscious half the time.'

He stared at her. ‘I wasn't going to rape you, if that's what you mean.'

‘Why not?' she said carelessly. ‘Other people did.'

His heart started to thump as he remembered her milky skin against the tousled bedclothes, the darker shape of her nipples showing through her pale green bra. ‘Well, don't imagine I didn't think about it.' But he had never wanted her that way: limp, wasted, incapable of decision, lacking in any kind of joy. He imagined if it were his daughter in that state – vomiting and shoeless, knickers lost, blouse torn. He shuddered.

‘So what stopped you then, Stephen?'

He paused, distracted by his own undeniable arousal. ‘Perhaps you were too much of a sex goddess.' He laughed tightly. ‘Or I was too much of a gentleman.'

‘Well, you can do it now if you like.' She looked at him directly, the dark line around each iris almost hypnotically clear. She leant forward. He could feel her breath as she started to unbutton his coat, loosen his tie, his shirt. He was almost suffocated by the intensity of his desire. He could feel her hands against his bare chest, then around his waist, his belt, his flies. Then she said, matter-of-factly, ‘I owe you something, after all.'

He pulled away from her sharply. She looked up, saw his dismay: ‘What's the matter?'

‘Is this just a payment for services rendered?'

She shrugged, eyes wide and ingenuous. ‘It's the least I can do.'

‘No.' He slowly rose, started to re-zip and re-button, his fingers shaking. He felt almost ill with the combination of revulsion and desire. ‘Well, you don't need to pay me back,' he said roughly. ‘I'll help you for free, Morella. For love, if you like. If you know what love means.' He placed the wad of newly drawn notes on the chest of drawers. ‘I'm going home now. Thanks for a great evening. Just like old times.' He couldn't control the sarcasm in his voice. He felt a terrible, towering anger towards her. He wondered what he would have done if there'd been a knife handy.