I didn’t move for a long time after I heard the door slam shut, then I pulled the chair out and sat. The passport was in my hand; I opened it, looked at the photograph of my father. He was just as I remembered. I smoothed a finger over his face. Such a good man. If he had lived, my life would have been so different.
Maybe I would have stayed with Mark all those years before and built a different kind of life. I might have turned out like Susan. A snort escaped. No, I couldn’t imagine ever being that gullible. The stupid woman had swallowed the lie.
Not about Mark, though. I hadn’t lied about that. Learning the truth about my father had changed everything. I knew what I needed to do, and when I was done, I’d need to get away. There was no longer any room for Mark in my future.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. It didn’t matter. Happiness was vastly overrated.
The wind had picked up outside, driving rain against the window, a rhythmic pitter patter that should have been soothing. It wasn’t. Everything was irritating me. It was the waiting. I’d never been good at it. Delayed gratification had never seemed much fun.
But there was no point in leaving yet.
* * *
It was two hours later before I manoeuvred the BMW through the gates and headed back to Thornbury. I wondered what Susan was doing. Such a doormat as she was, I pictured her rushing about, making Mark his favourite dinner, lighting candles, putting fresh sheets on the bed. Relieved to have him all to herself again. Stupid woman. She wasn’t brave enough to confront him so he’d believe he got away with it. He’d miss me for a while, miss the great sex. Then he’d be relieved. And then, when he realised he was back in the same old rut, he’d look around for excitement.
Poor Susan. Poor, sad doormat. Someone else was always going to write her narrative.
My narrative, however – drive to the police station, tell them my theory, hand over the proof in the shape of the passport, have my mother arrested, my father’s body exhumed and buried with the dignity he deserved – despite what I’d told Susan, that wasn’t how it was going to be written.
The law might punish Mother for killing my father, but they’d never make her atone for what she’d done to me: depriving me of my father, setting me on a path to self-destruction. Vengeance was mine and I intended to take it.
I glanced at the cleaver that lay diagonally across the passenger seat then back at the speedometer. It was tipping at ninety. I eased off the accelerator. It wasn’t a night to be stopped for speeding.
By the time I reached Mother’s house, it was nearly eleven. I drove slowly past, relieved to see the rim of light around the curtains on her bedroom window.
She’d have taken a sleeping tablet. She always did. I remember her telling the doctor she hadn’t been able to sleep since my father died. Grief, he’d said. Now I knew better. Guilt, even deeply subconscious guilt, does not make a good bedfellow.
She’d take the pill, climb into bed, and switch out the light. Once asleep, it was almost impossible to wake her. I remembered trying over the years. The night I got my first period, waking in pain, my eyes wide in horror to find blood on my sheet. I knew what it was, of course, I’d been to the talks in school, but the reality was more shocking. I wanted comfort. There wasn’t any.
It wasn’t safe to park there in the valley of the squinting windows so I drove a few streets away, found a parking space and walked back.
I still had the spare key she’d given me; sliding it home, I opened the door quietly. Not because I thought she’d wake, but because the neighbours might hear and look out in curtain-twitching curiosity. I held the cleaver hanging down and tight against my leg for the same reason. Then I was inside and could relax. I had no fear for what I was about to do. It seemed rather apt that my mother should die in the bed where she’d killed my father.
The stair carpet was worn smooth and my feet glided on it as I climbed one step at a time to the small landing. The door to my old bedroom was shut. I guessed she’d have already stripped the bed, desperate to remove any trace of the daughter she disliked… no, hated, I had to get that clear in my head. Susan had been right; Mother hated me. Remembering that would make what I was about to do easier.
Her door was shut. The key gone from the lock. What had she thought when she’d seen her door open? And the drawer? Had she known immediately that I’d found the passport and knew the truth about what had happened to my father?
Of course, she would have done. My mother might have been many things, but she wasn’t stupid.
I reached for the door handle and pressed down ever so slowly, afraid, despite my mother’s medicated slumber, a squeak might wake her. But the handle moved quietly and the door opened with a shush against the thicker bedroom carpet.
Perhaps violence was in my blood, because I felt no fear as I moved towards the bed. The room was in darkness, but enough light leaked around the edges of the ill-fitting curtains from the streetlamps outside to show me the bulge under the covers.
Had she done the same with my father? Waited until he was helplessly asleep before plunging a knife into his big, gorgeous heart. I moved closer. I could do this. Ivan had shown me how easy it was to inflict harm. The cleaver blade was broad. One thrust should do it. Sever a vital organ. Kill her.
I shifted the handle in my hand, then raised it and brought it down with such force that the whole blade vanished into her. Expecting some resistance – muscle or bone – I was caught off-guard when there was none and fell forward onto the soft mound of duvet.
The light came on, allowing me to see what I’d missed. Mother wasn’t there.
‘You always thought you were so clever, didn’t you?’ The voice came from behind me. ‘You and your father, two of a kind. Both of you thought you could get the better of me.’
I pushed up from the bed, but before I had a chance to recover, I heard a swish and felt a draught as something came barrelling through the air towards me. I learnt some interesting things in those last seconds. That you can still think after your skull has been shattered; that for a few microseconds, as you watch globules of your brain spattering in front of your eyes, you’re alive and capable of rational thought.
I would have killed my mother, she had killed me, it seemed we were more alike than I’d realised. Or was it a case of nurture versus nature? Too late for that particular debate.
Too late too for a theological debate on heaven and hell – if they existed, I knew where I’d be going. I had time for a twinge of regret that I wouldn’t see my father again. If there was a heaven, that’s where he’d be.
A final thought slithered through what remained of my brain as my life faded: I wondered if I’d beat Ivan to hell.