One Night

Copyright:
Malla Duncan 2012

ISBN:
978-0-9870052-7-4

Names,
events and situations in this story bear no relation to persons or events in
reality and are purely the creation of the author’s imagination. Please respect
the hard work of this author and do not unlawfully copy or resell this work.

Acknowledgements:

Cover
Design
by Michelle Williams, Colorado, USA

[email protected]

Editing
by Roz Isaacs, Vancouver, Canada

[email protected]

ONE NIGHT

Prologue

She knew she was going to die.

There was a defining moment
between hope for rescue and certainty of death. She had screamed until her
throat was raw. She had placed obstacle after obstacle in his way. She had used
two weapons: a knife and – of all things – a pencil, because it was the only
thing that had fallen into her frantic fingers. But she was small and he was too
quick for her. Her repertoire ended where his had just begun.

Even as she knew she was undone,
his choice of weapon came as a shock; it was the appalling fact of knowing she
would die like this, in this way…

Pain was the final surrender. Blood
pounding, eyes peppered with swelling vessels, her vision reduced to a smoky recognition
of familiar lines; the fall of sunlight on glistening leaves, a green feathering
of trees scratched against the sky.

There was one –
one
–
moment when he looked into her eyes. They looked at each other. A pause, almost
of enquiry. But while she looked for mercy, he looked to see that she
understood…

Part 1

Nightfall

People asked me afterwards if I’d been afraid. Always the same question,
‘
Weren’t you scared?
’ Well, of course I was. But when you’re just trying
to figure things out, to stay alive, you’re not thinking about what you’re
thinking, if that makes any sense. Bewildered would have described it. And anger.
Shock as though you’d been dipped in an icy river. Grief and terrible rage. All
that.

Fear – the real bitter taste of it
– that only came later.

11AM

Mona and I named it Witch’s Wood.

It lay south of Kirton on the
northern spread of the Lincoln Wolds, squeezed between two low hills like the doughty
remnant of an ancient forest. It had a sense of abandonment, an eerie stillness
at twilight. And plum in the middle was Brent’s cottage. Each year the woods edged
a little closer, creepers threading the brickwork like veins through a
crumbling skin. On a lazy Saturday morning with the sun pouring through my
kitchen window, it was as distant as the African jungle.

Mona’s call took me by surprise. ‘What
do you mean? You mean
now?
’

‘We’re leaving in a couple of
hours. You like it here, Casey. You’ve always enjoyed coming up. Secluded, green,
quiet. And it’s only for one night.’

‘Exactly. So lock up and go.’

She said, ‘I can’t leave Sticky.’

‘But you’ll be back tomorrow.’

‘No, you see he’s broken his leg.’

I had a sudden feeling of defeat. I
could already see myself reluctantly packing, getting out the old Ford my
brother had left in my care, stopping for petrol, and hoping darkness didn’t
fall before I reached the wretched place.

‘How on earth did he do that?’

‘He fell out of a tree.’

‘He’s a dog.’

‘Yes, I know. But there was a
squirrel and a really low branch.’ She paused, a slight tremor in her voice. She
was upset. ‘He has to be carried outside. And he has to have his pills.’

A wall was coming at me, stamped
with the word
duty.
The quiet day I had planned was receding like the
last ship to paradise and I was left on the shore with a cold wind blowing and no
proper clothes.

‘What’s so important that you can’t
stay and look after Sticky?’

‘Brent wants me to help him with
something.’

I didn’t like Brent Sedgeworth. I
always felt there was something untrustworthy about him although I could never pinpoint
this feeling. Under a sweep of too-blonde hair, his girly-wide eyes had the
emotion of two blue buttons in a pale landscape. And a smile a shade too easy.

‘Please, Casey.’

There was a tinge of desperation in
Mona’s voice. It sharpened my attention.

‘All right then. I’ll be there by
four or five this afternoon.’

I heard her sigh of relief. ‘We’ll
be gone by then. You’ll find the key in the pot by the door. I’ll leave
something nice for supper in the fridge. We’ll be back by Sunday lunchtime.’

‘That’s okay.’

‘You’re a brick, Casey Blaydon.’

I stood in my comfortable old
tracksuit, staring at the sunlight lying across my couch with the book I’d put
out to read that afternoon.

That picture would have to vanish.
I had to pack. Toothbrush, pyjamas, a set of clothes, underwear, innumerable
toiletries. For
one
night. Sticky’s brown-gold face with liquid eyes and
quirky smile was hardly persuasive. Wryly, I thought it weird that something as
simple as an errant squirrel had the power to ruin my weekend...

I packed reluctantly. Ms Mona Spears was hard to resist. We’d been friends
since nursery school. People used to refer to us as the ‘twins’ because we were
both small and dark-haired. But there the similarity ended. While I went for
gymnastics, Mona did higher courses in maths. I called her the owl when she put
on those austere dark-rimmed glasses and read books whose titles were enough to
faze me. She called me the pussycat because – she attested – no matter what I
did in life, I would land on my feet.

Except for Stephen. There I’d
missed my footing completely.

I hadn’t seen him in five months.
Perhaps, in retrospect, Stephen and I were too much of a good thing. When I’d
first met him he had a kind of devil-may-care attitude which I found
attractive. A big man, towering over me, lovely gold curly hair, green eyes glinting
with amusement and all sorts of unmentionable suggestions.

We met at one of Shannon’s after-parties.
Shannon was another school friend who had qualified as an actor and walked into
a plum stage role almost immediately. Flushed with the success of her latest
play, she invited me to the last night party.

‘Won’t it be just the acting
fraternity?’ I queried.

‘I’ll sneak you in.’

‘As long as I can leave in the same
way.’

‘Come,’ she said. ‘Great people.’

I was on my second cider when a tall man approached. Smiling down at me as
though he found me amusing in some way, he asked, ‘And what do you like to play?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I mean part,’ he said hastily, the
smile slipping. ‘I mean what’s your
part
. I suppose you thought I meant
an
instrument
. I mean – ’ he waved a hand. ‘I mean as in an orchestra.’

He stopped and we stared at each
other.

At last he said, ‘I’ve messed it
up, haven’t I?’

I studied him, wondering if he was
making me the butt of some joke. ‘Are you asking me if I’m an actor?’

‘That – ’ he said, bowing slightly
‘ – is what I’m trying to say.’

‘I do not play, I have no part, and
possess no instrument. Musical that is to say.’

‘Ah, thank God.’ He was hardly
listening, patently relieved. ‘I’m not really into the artsy scene. I was
finding conversation difficult.’

I lifted my glass. ‘That makes two
of us.’

‘Why are you here?’ he asked.

I pointed at Shannon. ‘My friend.
She wanted me to come.’ I peered up at him. ‘Why are you here?’

He was grinning now, dancing green
eyes. ‘My friend. Todd over there is going out with your friend. Looks like
we’re related.’

‘Sneaky creature. She never said.’

‘It’s early days. That’s why we’ve
been asked along.’

I had to laugh. ‘We’re the backup
system if things go awry.’

‘You could say.’ He eyed me, measuring
me. ‘You’re so tiny.’

‘Not from where I’m standing.’

He snorted. ‘You look like a pixie.
Look at those huge dark eyes. And that little turned-up nose!’

I was annoyed. But when I stared up
into his eyes glinting with humor, I liked the openness I saw there, the
honesty.

He asked, ‘Do you cast spells?’

I breathed out, feeling as though something
heavy was lifting from my shoulders.

‘Only on a Sunday.’

On our first date, Stephen Murray and I walked in the park. It was so simple,
so relaxed. A lazy Sunday afternoon, ducks on the pond, kids having a
half-baked effort at cricket, their shouts lingering on the warm air. I liked
the way Stephen loped beside me, making no effort to touch me. Hands in
pockets, we strolled. I was intrigued he hadn’t asked me to a neon glare
nightclub or to some fancy restaurant where he could impress with a knowledge
of wines and exotic food. Just this quiet walk, talking about our families and
who we were in life.

Stephen was twenty-nine. His father
was an engineer and his mother a teacher. He had one brother in shipping. He
told me without demur that he had no ambitions in any of those departments.

‘Missed tertiary education,’ he
said, a tad rueful. ‘Did the backpack thing for too long.’

‘But you saw the world,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he responded gravely. ‘And
never saw nothing like you.’

I pulled a face. ‘I’ve never been
much of anywhere. My dad died when I was little. My brother lives in Wales. He
owns a garage. Got two kids. Here, it’s just my mum and me now. She lives in a
flat two blocks from me. Works in a shoe shop.’ I stumbled over this last
information, worried that he might view me as inferior in some way.

He turned his head. ‘Owns a shoe
shop?’

‘No, works in it. You know,
saleslady.’

His smile was radiant, almost
relived. ‘But that’s what I do! Well, not shoes actually but just about
everything else. I’ve always been a salesman. I like people. I work at a specialized
hobby shop. Sold more toy trains than I care to remember!’

I looked at him and loved him right
there and then. An honest, open face, wide-boned, cheeks slightly ruddy. A
slight hook nose and those eyes set in faint lines of early wrinkles.

Relieved, I commented, ‘It’s great
to meet someone who is actually happy in their job. I’m so tired of people
always looking at the horizon as though they’re never satisfied.’

He pondered this. ‘I won’t say I
don’t glance at the horizon from time to time. Don’t you?’

I shied away from answering that.
Hardly the right time to tell him that most of my horizons had been within tripping
distance. When I hit thirty then –
maybe
– I’d look up.

I pushed the focus back to him. ‘So
what do you see on the horizon?’

‘Aw…’ he looked away. For a moment
his eyes stilled and I sensed he’d gone somewhere else, somewhere he wasn’t, at
this moment, prepared to share with me. Then he said, ‘I have ideas in my
head.’

A boy skidded past on a bicycle. A
little girl screamed and dropped her raggedy doll. Somebody ran and picked her
up. In the distance, a motorbike whined on the still warm air. Then the park
fell to quiet again.

Stephen and I stood at the duck
pond, staring into the murky water, each a little lost in our own thoughts. I
turned to look up at him, holding his gaze for long enough to really gain his
attention.

‘These ideas in your head,’ I said,
‘I hope they’re the same as mine.’

And there was my mistake. Believing that they were or could be. When we did
begin the neon nightclub round, it was on my initiative not his. Looking back,
I realize that everything had been about me; Stephen had followed to please me,
to keep something alive that we both knew was very good but possibly just
another of those fragile relationships built on physical attraction and false
expectations.

For starters, Stephen never
suggested I move in with him or he with me. It was all right with me, really. I
liked my own space. But it meant there was always a sense of transience in our
lives, always some other place to go. Leaving small things in each other’s
flats became more a symbol of the temporary nature of things than real
commitment. During our first heady year, we were besotted with each other. I
loved his rangy build: a big man, heavy-boned shoulders but skinny legs, hair
pure gold when it caught the light, soft, curly, a little too long.