Island (12 page)

Someone rang the doorbell. It sounded
in the hall and died away, then whoever it was flapped the letterbox in and out.

‘Shall I go?’

My mother nodded. I could see two heads through the stained glass panel; when I opened the door they were unlikely – two women in their thirties, a fat one and a thin one. The fat one had very baggy trousers and Doc Martens. The thin one was all in black.

‘Hello,’ said the fat one. Carefully neutral accent. ‘We’re looking for Calum MacLeod.’

Well, the boy has dark secrets. ‘He’s out. D’you want to speak to his mother?’

They glanced at each other and nodded and I invited them in. They followed
me down the hall to my room, where Phyllis still sat at the table. I had assumed she would know them but they stood awkwardly in the doorway trying to introduce themselves. I had to make them go in so I could get in.

‘I’m Sally and this is Ruby.’ The plump one had the friendly-sensible style that goes with being a prefect and knowing first aid, the kind of middle-class voice where the intonation’s been taken out so it’s flat and undramatic. There is a certain kind of person isn’t there who speaks terribly evenly, as if drama itself was a crime and everything must be flattened out to some baseline, perhaps in the interests of democracy.

She died
is what she said. She – I – died.

The plump one did all the talking. They were opening a vegetarian café in the village. They wanted organic veg. Someone had told them that Calum MacLeod–

‘Yes,’ said Phyllis. ‘He could supply you with vegetables. He takes them down to the post office but he could sell them to you direct.’

‘That would be good,’ said Sally. ‘Would he be able to deliver?’

Phyllis nodded. The skinny one looked at her partner. When she spoke each word seemed to have a careful space around it. As if really she was saying something terrifying – screaming obscenities – and a sound engineer had carefully synched these innocent-seeming words to her lip movements. She was completely insane. ‘Does he grow any herbs?’

‘I grow herbs,’ said Phyllis. ‘Out the back.’ She indicated through the window.

‘That’s great,’ said Sally.

‘May we look?’ asked
Ruby carefully.

Phyllis levered herself up. Her face was less pasty than it had been. She led them slowly through to the hall and I was left alone.

Why tell me I was dead? She was manipulating things towards some conclusion I couldn’t fathom. Showing me she was still one step ahead. I thought I had come to the island to wrest control of my life back from the woman who had sabotaged it. But I was wrong. She was still writing my plot.

It dawned on me that I had
never
been in control. I had thought I’d made a decision to find her, to come to the island. But hadn’t that idea been – like every other idea in my life – in reaction to her? She had built a maze and I blundered round it, each time I took a new turning I thought I was choosing my path; but she had made the whole fucking sealed system, she had me trapped like a rat. I couldn’t choose anything outside what she’d laid down for me because I couldn’t even
imagine
it.

I remembered my journey to the island. My pre-booked rail ticket, the train I’d missed. The storm which had stopped the ferries. She wasn’t infallible, then.

I sat on my doorstep and chain-smoked. I could hear snatches of their conversation over the herb garden – the virtues of black-currant leaf tea and oil of evening primrose, the reassuring solid tones of the plump one, the high-wire control of the skinny one. What would she have said if they hadn’t turned up? They were ridiculous, as if someone had suddenly pressed the channel changer, they were from another programme. The sun still shone brightly, like full lighting on a stage set. Bright and false. The thing about the storm was complicated, you could see it either way. Either she
hadn’t
wanted me to find her,
she hadn’t put that into my head, but still she knew of it (down to the finest detail, the day on my ticket) so she summoned up a storm to coincide with my arrival in the hope that it would deter or drown me. My missing the train and being a day late was the one detail she didn’t foresee.

Or she
did
put the search into my head, she did want me to find her, so she could continue to torment me close up instead of at a distance as in earlier years of my life; and knowing me as she did, as her creation, she
knew
I would miss my train; and the storm was there simply to point out to me who was boss, a threat which of course I was too blind and ignorant and
pleased with myself
to observe at all for the first few days while I still gloried in the delusion that I had chosen what I was doing.

Either way she was in control. She was in control and telling me I was dead. Which was a threat or a promise or, most likely, both.

OK. Just one thing to do. Kill her. Get it over and done with now – tonight – just get it done. Nothing more corny than films when the villain catches the hero then stands around explaining his plans, his life history and his philosophy while the captive figures out a way to escape. Just do it.

I went through the cutlery tray. Stabbing was what I had always imagined but there wasn’t a particularly good knife. One new serrated bread knife with a rounded end – useless; and one wooden-handled vegetable knife that was about as sharp as my toothbrush. I opened my Swiss army knife but I knew it was no good; the blade’s only five centimetres long, it might not go deep enough. It would be OK in the neck but anywhere else it wouldn’t reach a vital organ. Where’s the best place to stab someone? Is that why stabbings are always
frenzied attacks
– the poor murderer’s punching
holes all over desperately looking for a fatal spot? The penknife was no good anyway because it was mine. It had to be something anyone could’ve picked up in the house. Something from her kitchen.

I went to the internal door and listened. Total silence. The vegetable seekers had gone, I’d heard Calum’s voice at one point but now it seemed like he’d gone too. She was ill – she wasn’t able to walk unaided when I brought her into my room. Her blue-eyed boy must have put her to bed. But what if she was sitting in her TV room, just about to creep along the hall to make herself a cup of tea? Foul old witch.

Suffocate her. Tonight. Once she was asleep it’d be simple. Put a pillow over her head and lean with all my weight. She might thrash about a bit but I had more strength. Look how easily the Chief suffocated Jack Nicholson in
One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest
. Nothing to it.

I didn’t like the element of waiting, though. Just standing there leaning on the cushion. Wouldn’t it be shit if you did it for five minutes then took the cushion off and found her lying there grinning at you none the worse for it? At least with a knife you’re doing obvious damage – make a few holes, get the blood flowing, and you’re on your way.

Strangling? But I’d have to get something round her neck before I could do it. What if she woke up while I was sliding a scarf under her neck?

I could push her downstairs.

Hopeless. And she’d know I’d done it. She’d crawl away with a broken ankle accusing me.

This is why they have guns. So
you can do the job properly.

I come back to knife. Has to be. She deserves it – I don’t want her whole I want her ripped and slashed, I want her hurt. Stabbing gives her time to realise what’s going on but not enough to defend herself. Why should I smother her sweetly in her sleep? She needs to feel me puncturing her.

OK. I opened my door. Nothing. I took off my trainers and went quietly to the TV room. The door was open a crack. It was completely silent. I pushed it open a bit more – the room was empty. Fine. She was in bed. I went back past my door to the kitchen. The fucking door was shut wasn’t it. Closed tight. Either she was in there or she was in bed. OK. If she was there I’d come to borrow something. What? A knife.

Sure. A sharp knife. Suddenly I was
in
it. Calm, smooth, I know what I’m doing, I’m not scared of her I’m swooping soaring gliding. I want to borrow a sharp knife to gut a fish. My hand slipped on the round handle and it wouldn’t turn. I wiped it on my T-shirt and tried again. The kitchen was empty.

There was a theatrical drip-drip-drip going on; on the table an upside-down stool with a muslin cloth tied to its legs, bulging with the wet weight of some foul green slime that looked like boiled privet – dripping into a glass bowl underneath. The liquid in the bowl was a clear poisonous bright green.

I went quickly to the dresser; on its surface was a pestle and mortar and one of those precision weighing scales like chemists have. There was a row of unlabelled brown medicine bottles, I picked one up – it had white powder inside. Maybe she was a drug baron. Suddenly there was a clatter behind me. I nearly screamed. I swung round
in time to see the tail of the grey cat disappearing through the cat flap. I hadn’t noticed it was there. I made myself turn back slowly to the drawer, clenching my fists to stop the shaking. In the right drawer, matches, candles, seed packets, thermometers, syringes, an eye dropper, surgical blades and wipes. In the left, cutlery. OK. I pulled out a couple of kitchen knives. One was old and heavy with a stained blade, it had been worn sickle-shaped with sharpening. I pressed the blade with my thumb and it left a rust-coloured dent. The other was little and sharp but again had a curved end. Modern knife designers just aren’t on the side of stabbers are they? Gap in the market I’d say, nice pointy-ended knives. There was a knife sharpener in the drawer – I picked it up. OK. Take the old knife and sharpener. Do it tonight.

What if she got up to make tea and missed them?

Tough. Calum could have borrowed them. If she got round to thinking I’d taken them, that would give her something to worry about. Good. I closed the drawer and went back to my room. The first time I drew the knife through the sharpener was very loud; I put the radio on and finished sharpening to Pulp, ‘Common People’. Like me.

It was very sharp when I finished. I touched my thumb with it and the skin just opened and flowered. Beautiful. It
looked
like a murder weapon, it was big and black handled and stained, maybe it had done a job like this before. I put it under the edge of the rug beneath my bed.

The evening was long and slow. The sky was leaden grey, I watched it getting dark. I would’ve gone out but I wanted to hear her movements. She went to the bathroom twice and at 8.15 she came down to the kitchen and faffed around in there for about an hour. I smelt
toast and stronger whiffs of the privet juice. There was the clink of china. Her cat came and perched on my outside windowsill and I banged against the glass to get it away. Bloody thing, spying on me. At last she went creaking back up the stairs. I dipped into a couple of the books I’d brought with me but I couldn’t read, I didn’t want to let go enough to slide into a story, I needed to keep my attention on her.

It would be simple. Wait till 11.30, she’s in her first deep sleep; creep up, creep in, locate the neck, stab. Repeatedly.

What if it was too dark to see? I didn’t have a torch. I didn’t know how thick her curtains were, whether they would totally block whatever natural light there was.

OK. I’d put the upstairs bathroom light on. There was nothing to it. She was skinny and frail, a puff of wind’d knock her over. It was
simple
.

Afterwards, wipe my fingerprints off the handle with the bedclothes, leave the knife with the body, go to the bathroom, wash my hands, turn off the light, run downstairs. Unlock the front door and wipe off my fingerprints then go to bed.

Free and light-hearted. Sleep the sleep of the avenged – wake up not too early to the dismal sounds of clever Calum discovering his mumsy’s corpse. Help him work out what’s happened – door left open, murderer comes in – step by step – murderer goes through kitchen drawer and finds knife – murderer creeps upstairs – etc. to: murderer vanishes. That reminded me I had to put the sharpener back in the kitchen.

Motive? I wanted to steal some stuff to fake a motive but I couldn’t think where the fuck to put it. Outside? Just chuck it out as if he’d got scared
and dropped it? I decided to leave it to the spur of the moment. I didn’t even know what she had up there. If there was a jewellery box on a dressing table I could sweep it into a pillowcase and take it down to the garden. Maybe dump it in the ditch by the road.

11.09 I was pacing my room and taking deep breaths; I was an athlete before a race. Losing sight of any whys or wherefores now, just the thing of doing it, getting it right, hitting her in the neck. What if the knife got stuck? If I hit a bone – it could. Or even worse, snapped. What if it was so old and thin with sharpening that it got into one of her tough stringy sinews and snapped? I put the Swiss army knife in my jeans pocket just in case.

11.15 It’s a job. A job you have to do. You don’t know the reason any more, just you have to get it done before the next thing can happen, you have to get it out of the way.

What if she’s awake?

Tough. She’s flat on her back in bed, you’ve got the element of surprise. Just jump at her.

11.17 What if she’s got a weapon?

Unlikely.

What if she’s got an alarm?

You can still do it and be out of her room before anyone gets near the house.

11.23 What if she’s not dead?

Make sure she is. Keep at it. Chop her fucking head right off if necessary.

11.29 Why 11.30? Why not 12? Or between three and
four in the morning when everyone’s energy is at its lowest ebb. She’d never fight back at 3.30.

Yeah but my energy’ll be at its lowest ebb too, then. And I’m not staying up all night for the bitch. No way.

OK. Let’s go. Knife in right hand – practise stabbing downwards. Both hands on the handle for steadiness and force. OK. Open the door – bare feet cross the hall – footprints! Back into the room, close door, put on bedside lamp, put on socks. Open door, kneel, wipe footprints with towel. Try again. Cross the hall and up the stairs, slowly, slowly, one around here creaks – the fifth. No, the sixth. Step step step step and on up to the top. OK. It’s dark up here. Turn back along the landing. First door on the right’s half open. Bathroom. Need to switch on the light? I’m flapping around with my left hand looking for the string to pull when there’s a noise. Rustling and creaking. A slight thump. A step. She’s up. She’s approaching her bedroom door. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. I pull back deeper into the bathroom doorway. She’ll be getting up for a pee. OK. Do it as she comes in the door. Jump at her. Knock her–