fifty-one

The first blow only knocked him unconscious. I looked down at his face as he lay on the floor. He looked vulnerable, fair, his outstretched arms flung up behind his head where he had tried to fend me off. A tenderness overcame me. My anger dissipated, seeped away, like the trickle of blood that was now seeping from the side of his head. Seeing Jack’s body lying there, abandoned, I was overcome by a kind of desire – not for him but to be him, to be that sexual, that prone, that oblivious to life.

I brought the hammer down over his face again. I brought the hammer straight down on his face, splintering the nose and feeling the iron head sink into the cheekbones as if they were made of paper. It was only when the iron met bone did the weapon finally judder into existence. And I felt a surge of power, a sure sense of rightness. The handle seemed to course into my bone. Instead of it being a phantom extension of me, I became the phantom extension of it. I became as strong as its iron head, as ungiving and virulent. Blood splashed over the room, over my face and clothes and over Jack’s painting of Justine, just adding another colour to the colours that were already there.

From above the mantelpiece, Justine watched the scene that was taking place in front of her, with equanimity. Her presence now promised moments of pleasure as soft as melting snow.