Keep Her Sweet, page 18
*
DD, I still can’t wake her up, she won’t wake up. It’s Wednesday morning, she hasn’t moved at all for twenty-five hours. I’m so worried about the ankle bracelet. If she keeps not moving, the police will show up. I just know they will. I tried to carry her up the stairs a few hours ago. Put her on my back. Only made it a few steps before she fell off. I think I made things worse. I should try again maybe, do you think?
Her eyes have been shut the whole time. She won’t open them and there’s a weirdness about the shape of her. She’s all skewwhiff. I had to use bicarb of soda to get blood off the floors. It took so, so long. I’ve done three loads of washing and I’ve scrubbed the whole house over and over. I don’t know whether I should straighten her leg or not. I can see her knee bone and what looks like mashed potato inside. Think her leg snapped at the knee with the first fall, almost came off second time round. It’s disgusting. I’ve been throwing up tons and have had to clean that up too. There’s nothing left in me. I should eat something. I need to keep trying. I need to move her too. If I don’t we’re both fucked.
Hang on, what was that?
Thought I heard her breathe but no.
Back in a minute, I need to focus, just going to have another tiny little puff of the stuff in Spock’s tin.
*
The answers just come at you! I fixed a HUGE problem; brought the axe back down with me and did the count to three thing – I can do this, I can do this – one, two … and three. I had two good swings at the knee-bone and cut it right off, which is great because I can just move the ankle bracelet round the house now and the electronic people won’t suspect a thing. I couldn’t slide the tag off unfortunately. Asha has such hefty calves, poor thing. It’s in the bath at the moment. I took it upstairs in a bucket and it was nearly full by the time I got there. Gross. I left the tap on and I think the blood will be gone by now. I am breathing easy at last, phew. The tagging folk won’t be ringing the bell anytime soon. I can focus on waking her up now, put all my energy into it.
If I stroke her face at least fifty times it gets warm but I have to do it quite firmly with both hands and from top to bottom top to bottom. I’m finding that if I chant at the same time – ‘Rise, Asha, Rise, I want to see your beautiful smile, I want to look into your beautiful eyes’ – it gets warm, the life comes back a bit. I’ve played some of the music R and R and Asha and the others on those RTD sites sing too – songs about Jesus and Lazarus and healing and stuff – but I don’t think the music is making a difference yet. Worth a try, though. I’m not going to give up.
Back in a sec, just gonna rub her face and chant for another fifty then move her tag etc to the lounge. They might get suspicious if she’s in the bath too long.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The Therapist
Joy headed for St Pat’s on Tuesday afternoon, where she confessed to a desperate desire to jump on a plane. Father Nigel gave her five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys and she was annoyed when she left. He should have spoken sternly to her like Father Tom back in Winchester did at her very first confession. She was eight years old and did not take the advice of her kindly teacher – ‘just say you hit your brother or your sister’. Instead she said, ‘I stole a shilling from the collection plate last week.’ She really wanted to get it off her chest. It had been eating her up ever since.
Father Tom had growled at eight-year-old Joy: ‘You did what!?’ He lectured her very loudly for at least five minutes, with all her friends waiting their turn outside, and made her do an entire rosary.
What did priests know about family loyalty, she decided, as she made her way from St Pat’s to the van. She couldn’t think of anything more despicable than abandoning a daughter in need, no matter how old Jeanie was; no matter how kind and convincing her sister was. She would not do it. There, that was it, she had made up her mind. She would never leave Jeanie. Five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys. An insult to family. She completed a rosary, phoned the rehabilitation unit and paid for another three months. They were very understanding and agreed to hold the money for when Jeanie was ready.
She then drove off in search of her daughter, this time hitting the jackpot immediately. She was in The Old Smithy, the meth corner, with five people who were drooly and dangerous-looking, their ages spanning at least thirty years. Joy was terrified to approach the group. She took a seat at a table on the other side of the bar. It seemed a long time before she caught Jeanie’s eye and smiled.
Jeanie smiled back and waved but didn’t come over.
Joy gestured – come to me.
Jeanie began talking at a hundred miles an hour to a twenty-something girl, who talked back faster. Jeanie rolled her eyes. The girl laughed and looked at Joy. She was highly intoxicated, or under the influence, or whatever they call it when it’s methamphetamine. Joy should be empathetic, perhaps she should try and help. If the young woman wasn’t looking over and guffawing like an absolute bully, she might have.
They were obviously talking about her. Even as a hormonal adolescent, Jeanie hadn’t treated her with such contempt. It was sad that Joy was accustomed to it now. Since Bertie’s death, disrespect had been the norm. Mother-daughter montage scenes were few and far between. Joy couldn’t smile when she gestured the second time. Her face was very hot, and she was losing the sensation in her legs. The chairs at this grotty old pub were made for fitter people.
Eventually, Jeanie put her drink down and came over. ‘Hi Mum,’ she said flatly and without affection.
‘Hey, darling, are you okay?’
Jeanie was skin and bone and not into the hug. ‘Yeah, I’m great. How are you?’
‘I’m good. I’m good. I’m worried about you.’
‘Excellent, mind if I get back? Just in the middle of a really interesting conversation.’
Joy took her daughter’s hand. ‘Jeanie, come home, please come home with me. Well it’s the van now, I sold the unit.’
She laughed. ‘You’re living in the van?’
Joy was a bit hurt that she didn’t care about the unit, but didn’t say anything. ‘It’s very comfy. There’s a mattress for you. I washed and ironed your favourite linen.’
‘Thanks, Mum, but Mike’s putting me up. It’s my bail address so I can’t anyway. Let’s meet up later in the week though, yeah?’
The motley crew had moved out into the beer garden to smoke. Jeanie seemed desperate to follow them. Perched on the edge of the chair she kept crooking her neck, legs fidgeting, poised to pounce, desperate to get away from her mortifying, daggy old bag of a mother.
‘Please, Jeanie. At least come and see the van, it’s just parked outside. We’d be cosy as could be.’
‘And what would we do, Mum, play board games?’ Jeanie was looking at the door to the beer garden. ‘Fuck’s sake, maybe you don’t have a life, but I do.’
Horrid Jeanie was back in all her glory. Joy’s heart started going. She needed her medication. ‘I’ve paid for another go at rehab, for when you’re ready. You just have to show up.’
‘Thanks, Mum,’ she said. ‘Can we talk later, Friday maybe?’
‘Just come and take a look at the van, please at least come and look at it.’
‘Okay, okay, I will. I’ll just go tell my friends. Back in a sec.’ She headed out the back door.
That lovely boy who served the chewy steak was working again. ‘Nothing for me tonight thanks, Gregory,’ she said, despite the fact that he hadn’t asked, ‘just waiting for my daughter. How are you doing today, busy?’
‘No worries,’ he said, not hearing what she said, and taking a tray of pots to the alcoholics’ table. She was getting a tad tired of not being heard by the likes of lovely Gregory.
Five minutes later and Jeanie still hadn’t come back inside. Joy made her way to the beer garden, nervous. She was very intimidated by the group, most of all by her own daughter. Jeanie would probably say something mean in front of everyone and make her feel even tinier than she was – she must have lost half a stone in the last two weeks; moving home twice had taken its toll. They would probably all laugh at her. She wondered what it was they could possibly find funny; what would Jeanie say to make them laugh at her?
Check out her lipstick.
I grew up in Downton Abbey.
She lives in a dental van.
Joy opened the back door and peered outside. There was no-one in the beer garden. Jeanie and her anti-social bully-crew had done a runner.
*
Joy parked in a campsite out of town that night. She didn’t enjoy the tinned soup she heated. The communal area was not much chop either. There were three happy families in it: one at the pool table; one making pancakes; one playing Monopoly. She had a go at patience three times but didn’t manage to get it out. No-one talked to her or even smiled. Perhaps she would never make any friends in this new van life of hers. Before getting into bed, if a dental chair could be called a bed, she donned her slippers and crossed camp to the bathroom. It was mostly very clean except that someone had deposited at least one hundred dark pieces of snot all over the toilet wall. Some kind of protest, or mental-health issue, by the looks. She forgot to take her toothbrush and her conditioner, and she needed to buy a warmer dressing gown. After making her chair up with a flat sheet and a single quilt and exactly the wrong pillows, she messaged Jeanie again. No response. She zuzzed the chair as horizontal as it would go and closed her eyes for about two seconds before a voice scared the living daylights out of her. A man speaking sternly, a child whining: just a family walking past. She would have to get used to that. She zuzzed the chair upright and got up to check the cabinet filled with dental equipment. She should probably have some sort of protection with her at night. But what? The drill, the plaque remover? No, the scalpel. She put it in her handbag, put her handbag in her lap and tried to settle again.
Jeanie’s friends in that pub. The most awful thing, a forty-three-year-old woman doing drugs with a twenty-something girl. It made her think of the second-born in family number nine. So young, with so much promise. She’d looked a little dishevelled when she came to the hospital. Joy was suddenly worried about her. She was too unwell to probe at the time, but Camille was bruised; she looked vulnerable, scared even. She had just enough battery to text her:
Hi Camille, thanks so much for visiting me. Much better now. Hope you’re doing okay? Mrs S x
Campsites were expensive. Joy wouldn’t be able to afford such luxury very often. After her ablutions on Wednesday morning, she paid up and tidied her van for a day on the road. What road though? She didn’t want to go too far. Jeanie might be in touch.
She turned the engine on to charge her phone. Camille still hadn’t answered her message. She decided to go and check on her in person.
*
JE Collins, not JB – it seemed quite obvious looking at it now. Established 1895. She rang the bell three times before resorting to the knocker, which she banged as loudly as she could.
No response. Joy would have given up had she not heard music coming from the barred window at the side of the fortress. It was Camille’s bedroom, the pottery room. She was home, or someone was.
‘Yoo-hoo, are you there, hello?’ she yelled from the side of the building. Nothing but music. It sounded happy-clappy.
‘Camille, it’s Mrs S,’ she said, standing on her tiptoes but still unable to see through the window.
She walked around the back. The gate leading to the carpark wasn’t locked, so she let herself into the courtyard, which was a bit of a disaster area. There were plastic bags everywhere. They were filled with men’s clothing, knick-knacks and old newspapers. There was broken furniture. The bike shed was overflowing with stuff; its door swinging in the wind.
‘Yoohoo!’ she yelled, peering through the glass back door. The television was on in the living area. A true-crime show was playing. Someone was stabbing someone on the screen, again and again and again, stab, stab, stab. Joy did not understand why people watched this kind of thing. What was wrong with them?
‘Hello!’ she shouted to the person lying on the sofa in front of the telly. She wasn’t sure who it was. All she could see were legs below the sofa. ‘Camille, is that you? Camille?’
She bent down and had a closer look. No, no, it wasn’t Camille’s legs. There was an electronic bracelet on the ankle. It was Asha. But it wasn’t two legs, it was just the one.
‘Asha? Hello?’
The leg did not budge. She knocked on the glass door again. ‘Asha, it’s me.’ It wasn’t locked so she slid it open a bit. ‘Asha, it’s Mrs Salisbury.’ The area had been scrubbed clean. Someone had been busy. It was gleaming.
‘Asha?’
She did not sit up. Perhaps she was sleeping. Not wanting to scare her, Joy walked around to the front of the sofa slowly – ‘Are you okay?’ she said. ‘It’s just me, wondering if Camille is here. Asha?’
To her surprise, there was no-one on the sofa. She looked at the stone floor.
It wasn’t a leg. It was half. It was a calf.
Joy screamed. Someone had severed Asha’s leg at the knee. Someone had tied a belt around the middle of it, torniquet style, and bandaged the gristly, bloodless stump with a tea towel.
She lost her balance, nearly lost consciousness, wanted to throw up. It took her a moment to take stock and reach for her phone. It wasn’t in her bag. It was charging in the van.
The religious music increased in volume and she heard Camille’s voice. She was singing. Jesus Lord, something something something. Joy couldn’t make it all out. Camille was alive. But she might be in danger. She might need help.
The lights up in the mezzanine were off. ‘Penny, Andeep? Are you there?’
Nothing. No-one was up there. She was about to go out to the van to call the police when she saw a glass pipe on the kitchen bench. In a tin beside it was a small bag with crystals in it. Lord no, Ice.
She took the scalpel out of her bag and held it before her as she made her way towards the music and into the cavernous stone hall. Once crammed with upcycled homewares for sale, it was now empty bar the large dining table and a gathering of cleaning equipment that someone had recently used. The entire house was clean as a whistle and smelt of lemons. There was some mail on the table. Asha’s bedroom door was open. There was no-one in there. The door to Camille’s room was closed. The music and singing she’d heard was coming from there.
‘Camille.’ She knocked. ‘Camille? It’s just me, it’s Mrs S. Camille, are you all right, it’s me.’
No answer.
The scalpel in her hand was shaking. She gripped it tighter.
She pushed the door open slowly, one inch at a time. The desk was under the high window, neat and tidy. The pottery wheel was in the middle. In the far corner, one of the enormous bluestones had been lifted up and was wedged against the wall. The hatch to the wine cellar. Camille must have discovered the secret of this old building.
Joy was trembling. How could Asha’s leg have been severed? There might be a serial killer in the cellar. He might have had his dirty way with the girls and then murdered Asha and dismembered her. He might be forcing Camille to sing the song she’s singing.
Joy started retreating from the room, one backward step at a time, the new-age hymn resounding from the hole in the corner. She steadied herself, holding the frame of the door, trying to breathe. She should run. She should go to the van and drive as fast as she can. She should pick up the axe by the door.
There was an axe by the door. Shiny clean, it was.
Then she heard Camille’s voice again. Not singing, but chanting.
‘Rise, Asha, rise, I want to see your smiling eyes, I want to practise passes with you, I want to sing to daggy old songs and I want to dance, let’s dance, Asha. Rise, rise, wake up wake up WAKE UP.’
There was a floral notebook lying open on the desk. Joy glanced down at it:
…I think the meth is helping…
…The answers just come at you…
…I brought the axe back down … cut it right off…
…If I stroke her face it gets warm…
…Rise, Asha, rise, I want to see your beautiful smile…
She flicked through previous entries, words and phrases jumping out at her:
…She broke my nose…
…She shook me really hard…
…Head butted me…
…She bashed my back…
…She pinched my arm…
…Tug tug…
…Stabbed my shoulder…
…Get in the hole…
Joy’s heartbeat was matching the volume and rhythm of the chanting that was echoing from downstairs. She put her hand on her heart, closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them again. She would not phone the police. She would not call the mum or the dad. She would be Nurse Joy, The Fixer, dressed in white, teeth perfect and polished, exactly the right tools at hand. Axe at her feet, scalpel in hand, she knelt at the edge of the opening. ‘Camille,’ she said loudly, ‘it’s Mrs S. Just me.’
The chanting stopped. Nothing for a while, then sobbing.
‘Are you alone down there?’ Joy asked.
The crying got louder. Joy couldn’t hear anything else. It sounded like Camille was on her own.
‘Is it just you down there?’
‘No,’ Camille’s said in a small voice.
Joy edged back from the cellar opening. If Camille had someone else with her, she would not be able to help.
‘Asha’s here too,’ Camille sobbed. ‘It’s just me and Asha.’
‘No-one else?’
‘No-one else.’
‘If I come down will you hurt me?’
‘Why would I hurt you?’ Camille resumed her chanting. ‘Asha, Asha, four, five, six, rise, please rise, I want to hear you play guitar, wake up now, wake, wake up Asha.’
‘Okay, I’m coming down,’ Joy said. She put the scalpel back in her handbag, secured the bag across her shoulder and edged her way down the ladder and into the cellar.
