Girl

Even in the driving rain, clothes ruined, sodden and clinging to the
curves of her
body, she cut a startling figure. There was something overtly heroic
about her. It was not inconceivable to refer to her in the same context
as Hedda Gabler, Eustacia Vye or some other legendary woman. Her proud
head thrown back, challenging my scrutiny, courageous in the
unforgiving light of my headlamps. A snap-shot. Jean Harlow gone mad in
the modern world.

I felt intensely relieved. The sensation flooded my body and I
experienced it not merely as the relief of anxiety, but as a subtle
form of physical pleasure. My muscles relaxed, loose and warm. My
stomach was suffused with a sensation which struck me, bizarrely, as
akin to love. Or lust. Serenity and arousal simultaneously. For she was
now within my grasp. I could seize her, take her, conceal her from
those who
sought to destroy her. And she would have no choice but to
acquiesce.

I got out of my car, leaving the door open, the engine still running,
and moved tentatively towards her. Stillness, just the incessant
drumming of the rain. How romantic, I thought, two dark shapes
marooned, the stark light, an island in an ocean of torrential
darkness. Words buzzed and swarmed in my head, half-forming phrases and
ludicrous sentences. I felt it appropriate, in such unusual
circumstances, to allow
my intuition to guide me, but when I spoke my voice sounded tinny
and
unconvincing, broken notes issuing discordantly from cracked
bottles.

"I know all about it, about what you've done. I can help you......if
only you'd let me."

Silence. No response. She, a mannequin, cold and unmoving, a spark of
something flaring for a second in the bloodshot eyes. Fear? A wild
recklessness?

Memory is timeless. How strange it is that soundlessly, almost without
effort, our thoughts can travel freely through a lifetime of
experience, alighting here and there, re-animating events separated,
sometimes, by decades. And we detect no substantial difference. What
happened yesterday and things that took place thirty years before, are
equally fresh in the cavernous spaces of the mind. Their images are
unblemished
by time. They donot fade with the passage of the years. I pictured her
as a child, vulnerable but with that same energy of rebellion, that
changeling look about her. And then I saw her later, grown-up, insane
with emotion, stumbling around in the bedroom, a stained marble thing
in her trembling hands.

I had never believed in the happiness of her marriage. I had known her
husband of old, had been intimate with him, recognised his unstable
ambiguity. To talk of matrimony seemed vaguely comical when I
considered the tenuous connection she had forged with him. All grand
gesture and elegant facade. A palace of paper founded on matchsticks
and cheap glue. Not at all like the alliance I could offer. She spoke
vociferously of loving him despite all his faults. He was handsome, a
demon beneath the sheets and rumours of his wealth circulated all over
the county. If
occasionally he was abusive, a little rough in drink or through
cocaine, then she could handle it. It was part of the territory.
Something to be tolerated. Anyway, she couldn't hope for a better
opportunity. Her attempts at an acting career had ended in embarrassing
failure. She had no talent to speak of, we could all see that. An
expensive education served only to reinforce the fact that behind her
monumental facade lay nothing but a pure force, a weather-system of
erratic emotions only just
contained by a veneer of Gucci and the luminous sheen of costly
face-powder. It was only a matter of time before she came to
grief.

They had been happy at first. She had been more than satisfied with the
round of cocktail parties and theatrical openings her new status
afforded her, the Bond Street shopping and the weekends at Swiss Spa
resorts. The animal desires he experienced for her took the place of
real understanding. They were often to be seen at lunches or
early evening gatherings, clinging to each other, agleam with recently
sated lust, wilful like feral cats in dilapidated back-streets. The
bond between them was intense, could almost be felt. And yet, there was
sometimes a bruised look
around her eyes, a fragility, that spoke to me of nastier, more
commonplace things.

Throughout those five years, I observed her closely, discreetly, my
interest a
combination of paternal solicitude and frustrated sexual yearning. I
mentally noted the rhythms and cycles of their lives, the periods of
secret crisis, the ostentatious displays that followed, the slurred
midnight phonecalls she made to my answer machine when she knew I was
not there, his more explicit messages when I was. I had compiled quite
a dossier, just waiting for my moment, for my window of opportunity. My
patience did no go unrewarded.

They invited me to their house. Dinner. Just the three of us. And why
not? I was after all, almost a family member. Patrician, wise yet
approachable, I had been advising and admonishing her for years. It
seemed the ideal way of celebrating my role in their lives and the
perfect platform from which I could launch my offensive. I arrived at
8.00PM feeling sufficiently confident and contained within my sleek
suit, to handle anything the evening held in store. We sipped dark
green cocktails in their crazily spacious drawing-room. I moved quietly
between them, swimming in pools
of golden candle-light, awash with the soporific heat of the fire. I
used my softest voice, my most hypnotic intonation and they responded
with lazy, sensual smiles. Her flanks gleamed in the gauzy fabric of
her emerald dress. Seamless and fluid she glided towards us, her eyes
full of promises shining like submerged stones. Her conversation turned
around all manner of things, magazines and fashion-shows, trips
to Geneva or Budapest, business deals gone right or arwry, gossip
overheard in the jewellers. She addressed both of us but her eyes
seldom left his. I lifted my glass to my lips, radiant light refracting
green through melting ice, green like my jealousy, cold like my
revenge.

Around the table, intimately lit, it seemed to me that we were alone in
all the world, enclosed within a capsule of distorting emotion, a
forcefield of desire. I devoured the tiny yet exquisite Japanese fish,
tempered their salty flavours with the crisp edginess of cold wine, all
the while hungrily gazing at my companions, responding politely where
necessary to their questioning, mouth watering at the sight of their
red
lips moving, glistening with moisture, fine sauces and intoxication.
Everything was so finely wrought and perfect. Between courses, she
excused herself and I was left alone with him. My opportunity. He took
my hand and spoke, his voice, low, almost a whisper.

'Why have you not returned any of my messages? No-one treats me like
this. I need to see you.'
His eyes darted nervously about him, wanton yet filled with fear.
Exultation flared in my heart as I perceived his vulnerability and the
memory of him in my bed flickered before my eyes, an amazing dream made
real. I thought of him leaving me returning, that same night, to her..
I imagined the lies he had told her while traces of me still clung to
his body. It was astonishing what one could bring about if one only had
the
will and enough self-belief. I gave him what I hoped to be a
reassuring grin then squeezed and released his hand. She re-entered, a
little unsteadily, bearing two more bottles of wine and that dark green
liqueur. A gift from the dark gods, alcohol blurs, renders
untrustworthy our perceptions. A Dyonisiac. A bacchanal. She was
triumphant with booze. I thrilled with anticipation. My enjoyment grew
all the more intense as I watched my two companions become ever
drunker. Glasses emptied were immediately refilled. More wine was
brought and several jewel-like cocktails were made and consumed. The
inhibitions of sober daylight became fatuous and unnecessary. She, my
rosy-cheeked girl, spoke madly, tearfully, but smiling too, of her
pain, of how life was a trial to her, of how she had always relied on
my friendship. And he laughed, how he laughed. And the knowledge of how
short-lived his laughter was to be, was a flame in my breast. The time
was nearly come. I said:

'Shall we have a little entertainment?'

I drew the cassette out of my pocket and inserted it into their sound
system. Pressed play. Then his voice, recorded from my answering
machine, his low, demanding voice, his requirements for sexual
happiness, his needs for me, his disappointment in her, his other
lovers, his frustrations, the boredom of life with his posturing
spouse, his fond recollections of our nights together, his demands for
more.......................The air grew viscous around his words, the
atmosphere, toxic. I watched her closely. She was shaking a little and
all the colour had drained from her, leaving two high-points of rouge
starkly visible on the now ashen cheeks. She rose and stumbled a
little, before emitting an almost other-worldly shriek. Vitriol poured
from her and he answered her
in rage and profound shock. The great storm broke. Never in all my
years has there been such a moment, the red-hot needle pushed through
the skin of the innocent. I knew my love would win out in the end. And
now the final scene was unravelling before my fascinated eyes. She, her
anger a living entity, had pursued him from the drawing-room, out into
the hall and up the stairs. I sidled after them, eager for the outcome.
Their dialogue seemed wordless, an outpouring, primal and ancient.
The
air was rank with sweat and betrayal. He struck her and she staggered,
appalled yet redoubling her strength. The conflict intensified. Sounds
of objects breaking, in upper rooms, screaming, the evidence of
impacts, bruising of flesh and psyche. His brutal voice mocked her and
I saw the final act, saw her lift the ashtray and smash it down in the
middle of his forehead, watched him sink to floor, the last breath
hissing from between his pale lips. Her face was rapt, transfigured.
Now she was mine. she ran from the house, an elemental making her
escape into darkness and purifying rain.

I allowed her a taste of freedom before I got into the car, determined
she would not evade me, saw her ahead of me in my headlamps. That
moment I came to take what was mine.

'I can help you if only you'd let me. It had to happen this way. I had
to show you the truth. That really, you have no choice but to be with
me..........'

The sound of her gun was a insult. Love violated. My precious,
all-consuming devotion ruined in the end by her selfishness. She lay at
my feet,
blood spurting madly from the ragged hole in the left side of her
head. It disgusted me

Hedda Gabler was wrong, it was not beautiful, it was not noble. Just
sordid.
Rain diluted blood and it ran in rivulets over the uneven surface of
the road. I stood for a few seconds before turning my back on her and
getting into my car. Driving away, I didn't look back. It had all been
something of a mistake, a miscalculation.

But I would learn from it. I'm not easily discouraged. Life is full of
set-backs.
I think of someone else, now.

Ends.