There are only a few words written on the front. Not an address, not a name.
I know exactly what you did.This ends now.
A thump in her chest, a catch of breath. The predictability shatters. She’s so fucking stupid, to have longed for change. How arrogant she has been. Looks like Nemesis has finally caught up with her. Slowly, reluctantly, she opens the envelope, pulls out the papers that are inside.
Watching waiting I’ll catch you I’ll stop this he’s mine you can’t have him he’s all mine not yours mine mine mine mine.
Garbled words, the odd sentence, capital letters jumping at her randomly from off the page –watching me watching you watching me –the words repeating themselves over and over again in her mind.
By the time she’s walked back to the croft, she’s exhausted, even though the sun has barely reached the top of the sky. She’s weighed down by the box, filled with tins of Spam and marrowfat peas. The papers are tucked in on top of the food; they’re the heaviest burden of all.
But all thoughts of them go out of her mind the moment she steps over the threshold. It’s chaos, chairs lying on their sides, her jars of preserves smashed everywhere, the bramble jam bleeding its juice out on to the floor. Swallowing hard, trying to hold back a scream, Marie walks in further, dumping the box on the table.
Janice is crouching in the far corner, her head in her hands. She’s weeping, great sobs shaking her thin body. One of the whisky bottles is lying on its side – the contents look to be half gone already. Marie hesitates, goes over to her, puts a hand on her shoulder.
‘Are you all right?’
‘I can’t go on like this anymore.’ Janice picks the whisky up, unscrews the lid and casts it aside. She necks a mouthful. ‘I don’t deserve to be alive.’
Another long week begins.
Later, much later, when the crying and the screaming and the puking are done, Janice leans over to Marie, her eyes bright, glittering in the light from the single bulb hung overhead.
‘When the time comes, let me die, won’t you?’
‘You’re not going to die.’ Marie’s answer is automatic. Why would she try and stop it? The question goes unasked.
‘I want to,’ Janice says. ‘Seriously. I can’t go on like this. Will you burn me?’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘I don’t want the worms to get me. Or the beetles. I picture them at night, crawling through me, picking at my bones. Please, just burn the hell out of me.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘A fucking cremation, you stupid bitch. That’s what I did with the kids. Nobody understood. I was just saving them. What kind of mother would let rats eat her babies?’
Marie’s blinking. She remembers the story, the small bodies covered in petrol, scorched to the bone.
Janice is still talking. ‘Let me burn. Just let me burn. Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home, your house is on fire, and your children all gone . . .’ It’s her parting shot. With that, she collapses to the floor, her eyes tight shut.
Marie takes the envelope, pushes it to the back of one of the shelves. There will be a time for her to deal with what it means.
That time is not now.
33
Some mornings, Marie wakes and she’s forgotten. Lying in bed, silence around her, only the occasional baaing of a sheep there to break the calm of the morning. She’ll watch the sun creeping up the wall, luxuriating in the warmth of her bed, the clean smell of the air washing over her.
But then Janice will cough, or call out in her sleep, and the spell will break. She’ll remember exactly who and what she is. She’ll remember the photocopies she was sent, and the job she needs to do.
She can’t decide whether it’s better to start the day like this, with a couple of moments where she’s clear of memories, or if she should have them always in her mind. At least she’d then be spared the shock as reality returns. Or as much of reality as she can stand. Always, every time, it stops at a closed door, her hand on the doorknob. Then black.
Another Monday – delivery day. She draws a new stroke on the wall. How many groups of seven are there now? She doesn’t want to think about it, the collection of six vertical lines, one horizontal, the only way she can keep a tally of the days. She learned to do this the hard way, when she was a day late for the collection and the milk had turned.
There’s normally a cacophony of sounds coming from Janice’s room at this time, expulsions of air, a racking cough that speaks of years on roll-up cigarettes until her enforced quitting. But this morning it’s quiet. Too quiet. The silence bothers Marie. She puts her feet to the floor, moved by a sense of unease. Janice was drunk again the night before, passed on dinner, leaving Marie to eat the pasta she’d cooked on her own. Marie tried to get her to eat but she got aggressive, told Marie to go to bed. Marie did what she was told. She wishes she hadn’t now.
‘It’s up to me if I want to kill myself.’ Janice did say that. It’s not making Marie feel better to remember it, though.
