But Who Would Do Such a Thing?
The house was silent when Malcolm arrived home. He made his way straight to the kitchen, where he opened the fridge and took out one of the mince pies he’d bought that afternoon. He looked at the bottle of white wine in the fridge door and decided to have a glass. He had just won the Booker; he could celebrate with a mince pie and a glass of wine.
He popped the pie on a plate, placed it on the kitchen table and poured himself a glass of that wine. Then he sat down. He listened to the house. Nothing. He began to eat his pie.
He had finished eating when Amy opened the door to the flat. She was still in the dress she had worn to the Booker, but her feet were bare.
‘Congratulations, Malcolm. You were right. You won. I know it doesn’t make you very happy to have won. But congratulations anyway.’
She hugged him from behind, briefly. But as he remained stiff and unreceptive, she withdrew.
‘Thank you for reading my speech.’
‘Have you seen Helen?’ she asked, lifting Malcolm’s untouched wine from the table and taking a sip.
‘Of course not.’
‘You know all that crap about Helen being uncompromising was unnecessary, right?’ she said, sitting down at the table opposite him.
‘I spoke of the Helen I knew. The Helen I loved.’
‘What if she agreed not to publish the book?’
‘What’s done is done.’
‘It can’t be like that, Malcolm. It can’t. There has to be a way back for her. I need there to be some way back.’
‘We were compatible because we shared one thing. Integrity. What that is I don’t know. I feel it more than I know it. Like authenticity. We all have a sense of when something is corrupt. Like off meat or milk. We know before we’ve even tasted it.’
‘Helen isn’t off milk, you shit,’ Amy said, standing. She made her way to the hall then turned back. ‘You need to read that fucking book. Version three. It’s been on your desk for months. Then you’ll be on your knees begging for her forgiveness.’ She placed her hand on the table and leant in menacingly. ‘If you don’t read it, I’ll tie you to a chair and read it to you. I tricked that fucking snob Clarissa Munten into reading it. She said it was the best thing Helen has ever written.’
Malcolm seemed unmoved by Amy’s outburst.
‘She said it was better than any of your shit. And I agree.’
‘Why are you so angry, Amy?’
‘Because you’re breaking her heart, Malcolm. Because you’re being unnecessarily cruel to a woman you’ve loved for fifty years!’
‘She broke my heart first. Can you see that?’
‘And she’s suffered for it. She is suffering for it.’
‘She’s beyond suffering now.’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, she’s not dead. She’s alive. She’s probably upstairs in tears. I would be if I were her.’
‘Stop it! Stop it!’
Amy grabbed Malcolm’s arm and pulled him to his feet.
He was surprisingly light, she thought. She might be able to force him upstairs. She’d end this right now.
‘Come upstairs.’
Amy walked to the bottom of the stairs. When she turned Malcolm hadn’t moved.
‘You’re coming one way or another, Malcolm. Don’t make me kick your arse.’
He seemed to smile, but grimly, with a hint of a determination not to be moved.
‘This isn’t the outfit for a brawl. Do you have any idea how much this dress cost? More than any advance you ever received.’ She strode back to him and took hold of his arm. ‘But if you want to rumble I’m willing to risk it.’
As soon as her grip tightened around his biceps, Malcolm felt the fight go out of him. Though slender, Amy had youth on her side. He had nothing on his side. When she tugged at his arm, he moved forward. Then steadily, but with unexpressed reluctance, Malcolm was led upstairs.
‘She might be asleep. Wait here.’
Amy left Malcolm on the first landing and went up to Helen and Malcolm’s bedroom. She pushed the door open carefully. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness she saw the bed was made and empty. She switched the light on.
‘Amy!’ came a cry from downstairs. It was Malcolm. Amy’s heart skipped a beat and her head filled with dread. She ran downstairs as fast as her feet could take her.
‘Malcolm?’ she said, when she reached the first floor.
‘In here.’
There was less anxiety in the tone of his voice now. Amy went into his office.
Malcolm was standing by the sofa bed staring at a mound of shredded paper.
Amy rushed forward and took a handful of it.
‘What’s this?’ she asked, looking at him. He was crying silently.
‘My book. Someone has shredded my book.’
‘What book?’
‘The best thing I ever wrote.’
‘What book, Malcolm?’
‘It didn’t have a name. I just finished it. It was . . .’
‘The novel about Helen’s death?’
‘Who told you that?’
‘You did,’ she lied, remembering that Max had told her.
‘I did not. I haven’t told anyone. It’s been a private project. I wasn’t even going to publish it.’
‘You haven’t been that discreet. You don’t know what you’re doing lately, Malcolm.’
‘It’s gone now so it doesn’t matter. But who would do such a thing?’
‘Helen.’
‘Impossible.’
Amy had been lifting the shreds of paper and she noticed a larger piece fall to the ground.
‘There! What’s that?’
It fell at Malcolm’s feet. He bent to pick it up. Amy took it from him.
She recognised the paper. It was from a pad on Helen’s desk. She turned it over.
Amy read it and handed it to Malcolm. ‘She’s not fucking dead.’
He recognised Helen’s handwriting immediately. The note said: You know nothing of grief.
‘I have to find her.’ Amy left the room.
Malcolm sat on the bed and pushed his hand into the shredded pages. He read the note again. And he broke down. Not for the loss of his book. But for the loss of everything he loved.
Amy went into Helen’s study. There was the shredder on her desk. And the framed picture of Daniel that Helen had kept near her since the funeral. There was Howards End, too. And version three was there. She had brought it back from Malcolm’s office.
The note Helen had left for Malcolm had given Amy a bit of a shock. But these signs of action on her desk calmed her. She went downstairs, suddenly realising where Helen would most likely be. Sue had come to use the back garden as a place of retreat. Malcolm never ventured out there. When TV didn’t help, she would grab a blanket and head outside. Since the funeral, Amy had shivered beside her watching two days dawn.
But the back door was locked. She unlocked it and walked with feet bare into the yard. It was freezing. She saw both garden seats were empty. She ran back inside.
She checked her flat. She checked the front room.
Panicking, she ran back upstairs. She pushed open the bathroom door, turned the light on. And screamed.
‘Malcolm! Fuck! Malcolm!’ Amy was hysterical. ‘Malcolm. Oh my god! Fuck! Malcolm! Fuck!’
Amy took a few steps into the bathroom. What she saw horrified her. She couldn’t think. Her body was leaden. Helen was naked, seated clumsily in the half-full bath. Her head rolled along the curve of the bath towards the noise. Her eyes fixed on Amy’s.
Malcolm arrived.
‘Oh my god! Helen! What have you done?! Oh!’ He was screaming, too. He fell to his knees beside the bathroom cabinet.
‘Get someone! Malcolm! Do something! She’s alive!’
Amy moved slowly. She didn’t want to see more, but she had to help Helen. All of her instincts were for flight. This was too much for her. The horror in Helen’s expression. She was alive. She was in pain. She was dying.
Amy rushed out of the room. She ran into Helen’s office and dialled 999. She screamed down the phone that Helen was dying, that she had stabbed herself. There was blood everywhere. The woman at the other end tried to calm her to get the address.
Amy couldn’t remember the address. She couldn’t think straight.
‘I don’t know! I don’t know!’
The woman on the phone told her to calm down. Amy saw letters on Helen’s desk. She looked at them. Nothing. She opened drawers looking for letters or bills with the address on it.
‘What’s the fucking address, Malcolm!’ she screamed.
Then she found a bill. She read the address to the woman on the phone. ‘Come quickly.’
While the woman was still talking Amy slammed down the phone and ran back into the bathroom.
Malcolm was on the floor. He had dragged Helen out of the bath and she lay awkwardly across his lap, legs bent and head thrown back, unconscious. Her naked flesh was bleeding from numerous wounds. He was hugging her to him and rocking her, like she was a child. He was howling like an injured animal. Blood was everywhere. She had stabbed herself everywhere. A frenzy of stab wounds.
Amy stood still for a moment. She saw the knife on the floor for the first time.
The blood was on the floor. On the bath. On the wall. The bathwater was red.
Towels. She pulled the towels from the rails. She’d stop the bleeding.
‘Oh fucking Christ!’ she moaned. ‘Fuck! Fuck!’
She didn’t know what to do. There were too many wounds. Blood gushed from Helen’s thigh. Amy could see it pumping. She was going to die. She’d been stabbing herself while Amy had been in the house. Amy was moaning uncontrollably. Her hands shook; she was light-headed.
She covered her mouth and turned away from Helen and Malcolm, vomiting in her hands. It spewed out over the floor. She rested on one hand and shook her head. It was a nightmare. A nightmare.
‘Helen. Helen. Helen. Helen?’ Malcolm repeated. ‘Helen. Helen. Helen.’
Amy turned and pressed her hand on Helen’s thigh. Trying to force the blood back. Trying to save her. It was warm. Her body was warm. She looked at Helen’s face. It was white. Malcolm was kissing her and repeating her name. Blood drained from a wound on her neck.
She’d attacked herself with such violence. Amy couldn’t cover all the stab wounds. She didn’t have enough hands. Why would she? Why?
Then Amy heard banging on the door. The front door bell had been buzzing, she realised, and now someone was banging on the door. She stood up and moving unsteadily, her bloody feet leaving a trail across the landing carpet and down the stairs, made her way to the door.
They rushed past her and up the stairs. They followed the blood. When Amy reached the landing, Malcolm was outside the bathroom, kneeling on the carpet, staring into the room and absently wiping his bloodied hands on his trousers. Helen was stretched out on the floor with strangers around her. Two more pushed past Amy. Amy collapsed onto the top step and pressed herself against the wall. She stared, expressionless, downwards.