Claustrophobia (22 page)

‘As if you don't know about the birds and the bees.'

The sarcasm was unbearable, but Pen knew it came from deep hurt. No use explaining the years unable to conceive. She must keep a forward momentum.

She moved towards Kathleen and placed one hand over hers. Timing would be everything.

‘It's not that my feelings have changed,' she murmured. ‘I don't really have a choice. I need you to try to understand that. Please don't rock the boat with my husband. Darling Kathleen,' and she swallowed the lump of her own suavity, ‘I need a chance to do the right thing. I've done so much that's wrong, and you've copped a lot of it. Please let's move on and accept that it's over.'

Kathleen was fretting at her quicks with a pointed fingernail, and biting her lip. She seemed to be working
things through. That rational glimmer that never left her eye – Pen was counting on it.

Suddenly Kathleen let out a deep breath and stood up.

‘Fair enough,' she said dully. ‘It's not exactly something I can argue with. I guess this is where I butt out and go get a life. Where else can it go?'

Pen kept the relief from her impassive face.

‘I'm not an unreasonable woman, Pen. Unlike you, I don't play with people.'

‘I wasn't playing, Kathleen. None of it was fake.'

‘Yeah. Sure. But it doesn't matter now, does it? I guess no one's really got the moral high ground, in the end.'

Kathleen swept up her handbag and strode to the door, sidestepping some rolled-up vinyl sheeting the workmen had left lying on the floor. At the threshold, she turned and said, ‘Goodbye, Pen. I wish you luck. You'll need it. And you know what, I hope he's worth it.'

When she had gone, Pen's first impulse was to pack a suitcase and go. Anywhere. Far away.

Everything had come too close for Pen's liking.
Knapp
, as the Germans said. Her brain was buzzing.

She strode to the storeroom cupboard, but the cases were under too many heavy items for her to pull out. She sank to the floor and tried to decide what to do. It was stupid to think of going off alone, with a baby coming. No job, and the certainty of being found.

She could try Derrick again with the idea of selling up, going elsewhere. But he'd resisted it last time; there wasn't much chance of persuading him now.

Don't look back
. A song her father used to sing when she was tiny: ‘One day at a time, sweet Jesus …'

And why not be brave and brazen.
Take your own part against the world
. She had managed to get Kathleen to retreat; why not have faith in her own powers? She was no fragile creature; she was canny as an orb weaver, certain of which strands were safe under her tread.

Not exactly something I can argue with
. A baby changes everything: no contest.

She lay back on the floor, staring at the ceiling, and began to laugh.

‘Pen? Are you all right?' Derrick stood behind her. ‘What are you doing down there?'

She turned to look at him, smiling, her cheeks bitterly wet.

‘I'm fine, darling.' She got up groggily, and gave him a hug. ‘How did you get on?'

He recounted his trip to Perth and back, but she did not really take it in.

‘Who was that in the silver car, darling?'

Pen stared, wondering how long he'd been home before coming in.

‘Dunno,' she said. ‘Mormons called by, but I didn't see their car. I just said I wasn't interested.'

She no longer even noticed she was lying.

‘Send 'em to your mum.' Derrick smiled. It was a longstanding joke between them, the way Mrs Stone would argue for hours with the Mormons, neither side budging an inch. ‘By the way, love, why are there spuds all over the drive? I nearly went head over heels.'

‘Oh. Sorry. I dropped them.' Pen took one from his hand
and tossed it like a juggler's ball as they made their way to the kitchen.

Two days later, Derrick had to run his German exchange students to the airport. Pen stayed home in the cool, watching a DVD and eating a bowl of strawberries. She still had a craving for sweet things, and the obstetrician said they were good for folic acid. Even if she had showered them with sugar.

The DVD was one Kathleen had suggested, but they'd never ended up watching it.
Total Eclipse
. Pen had spotted it a few days ago in a Gatelands bargain bin.

Derrick had read the cover and demurred.

‘What do you want to watch something like that for?'

‘I thought you'd be interested, since it's French lit. And you usually quite like Leonardo DiCaprio.'

Derrick had turned away, shrugging. ‘Sure. What people do is their own business, you know me. But gay stuff's not my thing.'

‘Oh.' Pen had smiled to herself. True, Derrick was mostly liberal-minded, so why did he blush? ‘Well, I can watch it some time by myself.'

Midway through the film there was a knock and a rattle at the back sliding door. Outside: Kathleen's wan face, pressed to the glass as if under a microscope slide. Pen jumped up, shooting the remote at the screen to stop the movie, and shoved the case under a sofa cushion.

‘Please let me in,' Kathleen called through the glass.

Pen could hardly stand there and say no. She opened the door and Kathleen bolted in.

‘What is it? Are you all right? You don't look so good.'

‘Can I sit down?'

Pen nodded. Kathleen took her place by the cold hearth, the long-disused fireplace. She knocked Derrick's favourite floor lamp as she sat down, but caught it with her foot. The armchair sighed as she sank into it.

‘I just wanted to see you again. It's been a lot to process, Pen.'

‘And?'

Kathleen frowned. ‘I don't believe you.'

‘About the baby? Still?'

‘No,' Kathleen said carefully. ‘The baby is one thing. I just don't believe it's over. I don't
feel
it is. I think you are fooling yourself. Because you want to conform, you want to play happy families and have things ‘normal'.'

Pen could sense her adrenaline rising.

‘I thought we
agreed
…'

‘Just hear me out, Pen. I don't want to fight with you. I want you to consider. If I were a man –'

‘You're not a man.'

‘My point is, what we had doesn't just go away. You can't switch it off like a – like a movie.' Kathleen nodded toward the television screen. ‘I understand you want to do the right thing by your – your child. But how can you be sure it
is
the right thing? When it's me you care for?'

‘It's not,' Pen said sharply. ‘Now I really think you should leave. We've had this out already.'

‘No, we haven't. We've had you relying on me to pull out quietly, for the sake of your little ménage. It's not doing either of us any good to plaster this over. In the long run it won't be good for your baby, either.'

‘It's my husband's baby too,' Pen said curtly. ‘You might
sit in his chair, but you can't fill his boots,' she thought bitterly. ‘Just what do you propose, that you and I bring up a child together? How do you think that would work? It's completely insane.'

Kathleen stood up suddenly, and stepped towards her.

‘I don't know the answers,' she said. ‘But you need to talk to him about us.'

Pen had a vision of the three of them, reduced to stark pronouns:
him, us.
Names, personalities, histories dropping away like flesh to leave a skeletal geometry. The triangle.

‘I can't do that, Kathleen,' she insisted. What right had this woman, after promising to back off, to roll up again making demands?

But had she promised anything? How foolish of Pen, to be so relieved after Kathleen had left last time. She should have known it would never be that simple.

‘Pen, if you won't tell him, I will.'

‘You wouldn't. Not now I'm pregnant.'

‘I will. Because I love you.'

Kathleen grabbed Pen by the shoulders, her arms stiffly extended, as if she could squeeze or force compliance into her. Pen thought of ‘Oranges and Lemons'.
Here comes a chopper, to chop off your head
.

‘Don't touch me!' she hissed.

Kathleen laughed bitterly. ‘You used to like being touched. So what's changed? Don't you miss me?' She leaned forward to kiss Pen.

The kiss scorched her mouth, spot fire before a conflagration. Pen felt her revulsion and her fury rising, and pushed Kathleen away with an almighty thrust.

Something on the floor caught Kathleen's heel as she slid. She slipped backwards, arms flailing, and knocked her head against the stone mantel.

Veering sideways, she snagged the edge of the step and fell into the sunken kitchen with a shocking thud.

‘Oh, Kathleen! I'm sorry. I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to do that.'

The moment's thrill, the rush of self-assertion, had faded as quickly as it flared. It had happened so fast, she could not move to stop it – could she? Pen's arm trembled – surely she had not pushed so hard? Those bloody steps!

But Kathleen lay limp in a way Pen had never seen, even in sleep.

‘Kathleen?' Pen got down on the floor and shook her very gently.

Pen had no first-aid training – she thought of what she'd seen on TV, on film: don't move the person, feel for a pulse.

How did you bring someone round? Smelling salts, a slap on the cheek? Everything whirled in her head. Don't make a
Wirbel
, Derrick often said, German for whirlpool. Derrick would be here soon.

Derrick would be here soon.

There was no pulse. But Pen had always had trouble finding pulses.

She ran to the bedroom and grabbed a cotton blanket, draping it over Kathleen, and then put her ear to her chest.

Surely Kathleen had only passed out. Unconscious.
Only
, as if that were not bad enough.

But blood was seeping from under her lovely hair.

Wasn't that blood on the edge of the Toodyay stone, where she had clipped it? Glinting along with the quartzite,
like something warm and organic. And then the impact of the kitchen floor.

Pen raised Kathleen's head ever so slightly, and almost fainted at the gash she saw in the back of the skull. She felt her gorge rise, her own heartbeat a drastically loud contrast.

She must call an ambulance. But if Kathleen was already dead … Did you still call an ambulance when someone was dead?
Dead.
Pen's brain could not take it in. She knelt by Kathleen again and listened at her chest, but she knew nothing would change.

She was still kneeling there, in a stupor, an hour or so later when Derrick appeared at the sliding door.

He stepped in slowly, halting at the sight of them.

‘It was an accident,' Pen stammered. ‘An intruder.'

Even now she could lie. Though it was partly true. Wasn't it an accident?

‘She slipped, Derrick, and I think she's cracked her head.'

Derrick crouched and urgently checked over the body. ‘Have you called for help?'

‘Yes. No. I haven't. I can't.'

‘What? What happened?'

Pen said nothing.

‘Why haven't you called?' Derrick said, standing again, helpless, looking around. ‘We'd better get an ambulance.' Then he said, ‘But the car, in the driveway …?'

‘We can't. Derrick, I pushed her. It was – it was self-defence. But they won't believe me.'

‘You can't just let her die.' He felt again for a pulse, then
for a heartbeat. ‘Oh Christ, Pen, I think she
is
dead.'

Pen nodded.

‘The longer we leave it to call someone,' Derrick said, ‘the more trouble … Didn't you try to revive her? How hard could you have pushed her?' He rubbed at his beard and looked around wildly, his gaze snagging in the living room. ‘Pen, is that her
handbag
?'

Pen turned in a daze. She hadn't even noticed Kathleen's sleek little beige clutch bag, left beside the armchair.

‘This is someone you know, isn't it? The car,' he said suddenly. ‘I saw the same car …'

Pen didn't answer.

‘I think you need to tell me what's been going on, and you'd better hurry.'

Pen tilted back her head. Derrick took her face in his hands, an adult quizzing a child.

‘Is it something to do with that stalker – that card you got, by any chance?'

Pen sat back on her haunches, wrapping her arms around her calves.

‘Don't you recognise her?' she said coldly.

Derrick stared. ‘Should I? I've never seen her in my life before.'

Pen considered that, blankly. ‘Are you sure?'

‘Yes, of course I'm sure!'

She sat a few minutes, rocking where she crouched, and groaning now and then. Finally she said, ‘Derrick? Derrick, you're going to have to help me.'

Surprisingly, the bald facts didn't take that long to recount. Pen felt as if she were telling him the plot of some awful movie.

She had no choice. But there were still some smaller options, nuances. She could leave some things out. Tell him how she'd hunted Kathleen down, harassed her, sent her emails, out of jealousy and possessiveness, all those months ago – but leave out the affair …? Leave out her thoughts of murder?

Yet wherever she skipped over, or summarised, Derrick pressed until he had all the details. It wasn't as deeply humiliating as she had feared. It was more of a relief, to let out all she had stored up.

The worst of it was, Derrick didn't stop staring the whole time. His eyes never once left hers. She watched for some change, some fluctuation in him that would tell her it was over between them, finally.

But he did not so much as flicker.

When she stopped at last he said, ‘And that's everything?'

She nodded.

Derrick got up, went over to where Kathleen's body lay, and pulled the blanket over her face, as easily as if he had done it before. Then he turned back to Pen.