The Wimbledon Poisoner Page 9

  ‘The best thing for a gyp tum,’ he said, ‘is—’

  ‘Quickly—’ said Henry, raising the glass to his lips.

  Donald spat back the liquid. ‘Christ, old man—’ he muttered, ‘what are you trying to do? Poison me?’

  It was clear that Donald extended his brutal, no-nonsense attitude to medical care to himself.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’ll be all right. Sort myself out in no time at all. I’ll be – Oh my God!’

  Henry made one more attempt. Putting his left arm round Donald’s shoulder, he took advantage of his first relaxation from the spasm of pain, to raise the glass to his lips, push his head back and, as if he were administering medicine to Maisie, roll the fluid past the perfectly kept teeth. There was a gulp and a yell and the rest of the glass (he had drunk at least some) flew up and out and on to the sanded floor of the dining area.

  ‘Henry—’ said Donald, ‘what the fuck is that?’

  ‘It’s called . . .’ Henry paused. ‘Globramine.’

  The sound of the name seemed to reassure Donald. ‘I think I know it,’ he gasped, ‘though I’m not very good on drugs. I’m rather against a lot of these medicaments . . .’

  He was wheezing now, as if in the grip of an asthma attack.

  ‘Let the bastards sort themselves out.’

  It was difficult to know, though, whether he had had enough to save him. But at least, thought Henry, the man had a fighting chance. If only Elinor hadn’t refused her portion. She must have some radar, he thought, that at the last saved her from the worst effects of his anger and frustration. Which is why it all came back on him. It’s a war, thought Henry, between men and women. It’s a war, a long, bitter and pointless war, in which towns are burnt, cities taken, allies betrayed . . . and at the end of the war, as after all wars, there is no victory, only the shabby compromise of peace.

  He could have murdered her then, in front of Donald and Maisie and the cat. He could have run at her, forced her to the ground and banged her stupid, glossy head until her brains spilled out on to the stupid, glossy floor.

  But he didn’t. He stood there, clenching and unclenching his hands, trying not to twitch. Am I going crazy? he thought. And when I do, will all this get easier?

  ‘I’ll run Donald home!’ Elinor was saying, ‘you get Maisie to bed!’

  ‘Yes, dear!’ said Henry.

  As Elinor and Donald shuffled towards the door, Tibbles shouldered her way into the room. She looked left and right and approached the pool of dynercaprol and potassium chloride in a carefully stylish manner. She looked round the room, as if to check that no one else wanted it and then, watched by a sullen Henry, began to lick it up greedily.

  Women and cats, thought Henry, women and cats . . .

  While Elinor and Donald were gone, Henry practised strangling.

  The whole problem was going to be catching her off her guard. And Elinor was never off her guard. Now Henry thought about it, she seemed to enter rooms which he was in carefully, keeping her back to the wall; if he got close to her, she nearly always moved away quickly, usually making sure their bodies did not touch. Henry had always assumed that this was due, on her part, to an entirely natural physical repugnance for him; she moved away from him as one might move away from a bad smell or a dangerous horse. And up until now, the effortless ballet of their lack of encounter had come, in a way, as a relief. He, after all, found her quite as repulsive as she found him and, as the two of them waltzed from oven to sink, from window to cutlery drawer, staring up, down, sideways, anywhere but at each other, Henry had always assumed that this was no more than the usual politesse of a failed English, suburban marriage.

  But now he thought about it, weighing up different locations in the house as possible strangling areas, there was a definite pattern to her movements. She was – in the bedroom and the kitchen anyway – quite definitely trying to get behind him, and in clearer ground, the hall, stairs, lounge or garden, she moved fast, certainly too fast to be strangled. This had to be deliberate. Didn’t it?

  About the only safe areas were the lavatory or the bathroom.

  Henry went up to the landing and sized up the lavatory. The chief advantage here was that the door was never locked. Elinor’s only defence system was to say, in a tone fractionally the right side of panic – ‘I’m in here!’ – if ever she saw the door move. It might also be the case, too, that if he timed the attack carefully he might be able to give the verb ‘caught short’ a transitive sense. They would, however, be facing each other. There was, presumably, a sound evolutionary reason for the fact that no one had yet designed a lavatory in which the occupant faced away from the door, some relic of the time when primitive man was most at risk when at stool, but it did mean that the lavatory user was finely tuned to the approach of strangers.

  Henry gave a short run and shouldered his way past the door.

  It wasn’t entirely satisfactory. She might get her head down and then butt it upwards into his stomach. She had, to hand, the lavatory brush, three toilet rolls and the hardback edition of a very long novel by a Peruvian author with an unpronounceable name. She had her teeth and her two strong arms.

  Her teeth. Brushing her teeth. That would be the ideal activity to interrupt by strangulation. It would be late at night, she would have her back to the door and, when brushing her teeth, Elinor went into a kind of trance. He stood at the door of the bathroom, visualizing this most familiar of her rituals. Her left arm by her side, her right elbow out at an angle and her forearm shaking like a pneumatic drill. Her head motionless as her hand moved up, down, side to side, up, down, side to side, the only sound the scritch scratch of the bristles against her perfect ivories. He would do it tonight. He would have to do it tonight. You fell off the horse, you got straight back on and did it again. Go for it, Henry! he told himself. Go for it!

  ‘The deadline’ (this time he spoke aloud) ‘is midnight!’

  13

  Maisie came into the bathroom as he was standing slightly to the right of the basin, arms outstretched, thumbs interlocked, squeezing an imaginary neck.

  ‘Are you practising strangling?’ she said.

  Henry jumped. ‘You should be in bed!’ he said.

  ‘Pozzo is depressed!’ said Maisie.

  Pozzo was a small black furry creature that, years ago, had belonged to Henry. Before Henry it had been Henry’s father’s. Whether it was a zebra, or a panda or a bear or a seal, cat, ocelot or kangaroo was unclear, but whatever it was, on the grounds of its appearance, it had every good reason to be depressed.

  Henry decided to out-twee her. ‘Was it sad because its mummy was nasty to it?’ he said. ‘And shall we make it a pwethent to make it happy?’

  Maisie looked at him in disgust. ‘Don’t be stupid!’ she said. He grabbed her, propelled her towards the basin and began to brush her teeth.

  ‘Well, don’t you be so disgustingly arch!’ he said, brushing her teeth vigorously.

  Maisie put out her tongue at him (no easy task for someone who is having their teeth brushed) and made a farting noise. ‘You hate Mummy, don’t you?’ she said.

  ‘Of course I don’t!’ said Henry. ‘I love Mummy. I love Mummy very much and she loves me and we both love you and we all go diddledy diddledy dumpling through the heather on a hot sunny day, like a bunny rabbit with the clap.’

  Maisie laughed coarsely. Then, a shade of nervousness entering her voice, she said: ‘You do love Mummy, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Henry (he sounded, he thought, incredibly sincere as he said this), ‘deep down. Incredibly deep down. Millions of miles down in the black, twisted heart of me I do. It’s just that I am so evil and perverted and encrusted with slime that it’s rather difficult for me to remember the fact.’

  Maisie laughed. She was one of the few people in the world who genuinely found Henry funny. Other people, he thought, probably found him funny, but funny for the wrong reasons. Funny because he was forty and not very clever and lived in an
English suburb called Wimbledon. Funny laugh-behind-your-hands, thought Henry, funny the way Karim Jackson—

  ‘You’re hurting me!’ said Maisie.

  To his horror Henry saw that as he had been brushing her teeth he had started to grip her neck, hard. There was a brutal, red thumb mark just at the point where her shoulders met her neck. He bent down and kissed it, overcome suddenly with remorse. It was thinking about that publisher that had done it. Why did that bastard have the right to say ‘no’ to him? Just like that. To ignore something that could (Henry was prepared to admit that The Complete History might need work) be one of the most exciting developments in social history this century. It seemed, somehow, monstrously unfair that a decision of such importance to England’s cultural future should be left to a person from Pakistan.

  Henry wasn’t a racist. He just didn’t want the bastards to get the upper hand. Didn’t they have enough? Couldn’t they just ease up a little? Why did Karim—

  ‘Ow!’ said Maisie.

  He was squeezing her neck again.

  ‘Sorry!’ said Henry.

  ‘I won’t have any teeth left.’

  England was owned by other people these days. After years of greatness it was just a place like any other place. That, somehow, was the worst insult of all.

  ‘Ow!’ said Maisie again.

  ‘Sorry!’ said Henry.

  She turned her plate-like face up to him. ‘Can I have my story?’ she said.

  ‘Of course, my love,’ he said.

  Maisie was the only person to whom Henry ever talked these days. She was certainly the only person to whom he started to describe his feelings. In the stories he told her were roads and trees and houses and mountains and monsters and rivers and magicians; but at the centre of the story there was always Henry. Henry, in the story, lived in Wimbledon, but not the same Wimbledon. It wasn’t even the Wimbledon of The Complete History. It was Wimbledon with some things left in and some things left out. Wimbledon at once grotesque and matter of fact. The suburb became, under Henry’s hands, like a vacant lot in Hollywood – full of cardboard houses under an artificial sky. And yet, almost against Henry’s will, the real suburb kept breaking in until among the paper houses you could smell the decaying leaves, the acrid exhaust of cars and hear the children shouting to each other under the huge sky on the common.

  ‘What’s this one about?’ she said, as, holding his hand, she climbed the short flight of stairs that led to her attic room.

  ‘It’s about the time I turned into a pig!’ he said.

  Maisie bounced into her room. ‘What kind of pig?’ she said.

  ‘A male chauvinist pig!’ said Henry.

  ‘Is that a good sort of pig?’ she said.

  ‘No,’ said Henry, ‘it’s an awful, rude, wicked, cruel sort of pig.’

  ‘Why did you turn into it?’

  ‘Because,’ said Henry, ‘I was depressed.’

  He lay next to his daughter on the bed and put his arm round her. She looked up at him.

  ‘Why were you depressed?’ she said.

  ‘Because,’ said Henry, ‘my pig wife was going to be made into bacon.’

  ‘Why was she going to be made into bacon?’

  ‘Because,’ said Henry, ‘she had caught a very serious disease.’

  ‘What disease?’

  ‘It’s called feminism,’ said Henry, ‘and I hope you never get it, because it is absolutely awful and it makes you swell up to an enormous size and when you have it really badly you go round bonking men on the head and blaming them for everything. And your arms grow all hairy and muscly like a man’s and you get very keen on boxing and tossing the caber.’

  Maisie showed worrying signs of interest in feminism.

  ‘It sounds fun!’ she said. Then she looked at Henry suspiciously. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I know what feminism is. It’s thinking girls and women are good. What’s so wrong with that?’

  Henry’s stories quite often developed into debates of this kind. In fact, on many occasions, Maisie talked more than Henry.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with that,’ said Henry, ‘and some feminists are quite nice. But some of them are bad-tempered ratbags who should be locked away in a cellar with a lot of other feminists. I’m not saying that women and girls are bad. I think they’re nice. I just don’t like being told that boys and men are bad. I think it’s stupid and unfair.’

  Maisie thought about this. Then she said, ‘Well. Boys and men are all right, I suppose. Anyway. Go on with the story.’

  ‘So,’ said Henry, ‘my pig wife . . .’

  It was curious. Here he was, as usual, telling Maisie her story. And a few streets away, Donald was probably in his death agony. Or if not actually in it, well on the way to it. What was so attractive about poison (and Henry had, with some regret, more or less reconciled himself to Donald’s death) was that it acted so independently. It was like a good secretary. The sort of secretary you couldn’t get hold of at Harris, Harris and Overdene. ‘Thallium,’ you said, ‘job for you!’ and thallium picked up the papers, simpered, and went out into the world to do your bidding.

  Strangling was not like that.

  ‘You’re squeezing again!’ said Maisie. ‘Why are you squeezing?’

  ‘Because I love you,’ said Henry.

  ‘Go on about the pig now!’ said Maisie.

  ‘Well,’ said Henry, ‘my pig wife—’

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘Her name,’ said Henry, ‘was Elinor.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Maisie, ‘like Mummy.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Henry, ‘but my pig wife wasn’t like Mummy. Mummy is sweet and good and kind. But this pig was odious and conceited and impossible to live with.’

  ‘Because it was a feminist!’ said Maisie, with a touch of satire.

  ‘That’s right!’ said Henry. ‘Which is not to say that it was odious and conceited because it was a feminist. I repeat. Not all feminists are odious and conceited. But they are not automatically right about everything. And the ones who see life purely as a battle between men and women – which, of course, it is, I suppose, are . . .’

  He stopped. Maisie was looking at him doubtfully. He wasn’t getting the story right. It was infected with doubt. Somehow the outside world had intruded and broken up the fabric of the tale. What were usually asides, about life, religion, art, politics, had come to dominate the story. He saw himself suddenly, a fat man on a bed, haranguing his daughter about feminism. Was that what he was? Did he, perhaps, really hate women? Maybe Elinor was right. And if she was, perhaps he ought not be trying to murder her?

  No. It was just a difficult, demanding task to perform. That was all. It interfered with your peace of mind. From the outside, murder looked like a quiet, sensible alternative to divorce. When you were actually involved in it, when you were down there at the murder coal-face, it could be as complicated and unsatisfactory as marriage.

  He had better get Maisie to sleep, though. He didn’t really want her to hear her mother being strangled.

  ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘this story is really about this pig’s father.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Maisie.

  ‘In fact,’ said Henry, ‘it’s about my father. Who was, of course, in the story, a pig. And although I didn’t like my pig wife or my pig mother come to that – I was very fond of my pig father. Because he, like me, was a male chauvinist pig. We all lived in this sty, just off Wimbledon Hill. It was a very expensive sty and like all the other pigs in the street we were very heavily mortgaged—’

  He saw Maisie start to open her mouth and, before she had time to ask the inevitable question, said, ‘We had borrowed money from the pig bank. Anyway, one day the farmer who owned the street knocked on the door and told us that my pig father was due to be made into bacon. There was no way to avoid it. The next day we had to report to the huge, ugly, frightening, hideous abattoir man who, in case you didn’t know, lives, actually lives three streets away from us! He is tall and cold and sometim
es he doesn’t only come for pigs he comes for greedy little girls who make pigs of themselves, with too many sweets!’

  Maisie was now bug-eyed with fright. Henry leaned across and tapped her on the chest.

  ‘But,’ he said, ‘my pig wife, Elinor, decided to save my pig father. She decided he was one fat pig in Wimbledon who was not, could not, should not be brought under the knife of the evil abattoir man who lives, in case you need to know, in Clifton Road just off the common, and the story of how she fought off his terrible friend Farmer Dune, and rallied all the pigs of Wimbledon is the greatest story ever told. You will hear how Farmer Dune was himself eaten by a group of pigs. You will hear how pigs decided to own their own houses, and how pigs like me who worked for Harris, Harris and Overdene openly ate legal documents in the street. And you will hear most of all about the abattoir man, the evil, cold-hearted villain who knows no pity!’

  Maisie was still bug-eyed. Her chin trembled with anxiety and her big, blue eyes looked far beyond Henry and the bright patterned curtains, at something only children see. He hugged her tightly, unburdened of some inner horror, suddenly carefree.

  ‘I’ll tell you the rest,’ he said, ‘tomorrow night!’

  When we will be a single-parent family.

  Henry liked the idea of being a single-parent family. There would be programmes about him on the television. Support groups would flash their telephone number at him late at night on Channel 4. He would, he realized, for the first time in his life have a socially acceptable problem. Being fat and forty and hating one’s wife and job were none of them socially acceptable. Murder was to make him something he had always suspected he might be, but had never dreamed of becoming – interesting.

  For a moment, he wished he could tell Elinor these things. To talk to her, reason with her, confide in her, as people are wont to do when confronting their victims with loaded guns. ‘You see, Inspector, you have to die because—’ ‘Elinor,’ he could see her white anxious face now, ‘you have to let me strangle you. I need to grow and change and develop as a person in my own terms. My therapist, Elinor, a man called Graham Young, suspects that the only way forward for me emotionally is to fasten my fingers round your windpipe and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze until your face turns black . . .’