Never: an erotic retelling of Peter Pan (12 page)

No response.  She knocked louder, then after a minute, frowning, knocked again.  Voices echoed up the stairwell and after frantically knocking a fourth time, she tried the doorknob.  The door swung open at her hand and she ducked inside, shutting it behind her. 

Chapter Seven

"So, Mrs Williams - "

"Dr Williams," Dee corrected out of habit, staring down at the blood-stained hands in her lap.  It, the blood, was all over her - her face, her legs, her feet, her hair, and smeared all over her coat.  On her lap, where she'd cradled his head, its warmth had seeped through to the bare skin beneath, matting her pubic hair and oozing down to mingle with the fluids of her previous arousal.  The thin silk of the coat was stuck to her thighs, creating an uncomfortable sensation, and she forced her mind to concentrate on that.

"Right.  Dr Williams," said the gravelly voiced detective standing beside Billy's bed.  He was hugely obese, and her peripheral vision could detect other people - probably the ambulance officers, having to edge around him in the confines of the tiny dormitory room. 

The detective was watching her, she could feel that, but she couldn't look at him.  And she didn't want to listen.  She wanted to snuggle down into Billy's bed and go to sleep, and never wake up.  But she couldn't seem to move, so she remained still, propped against the thin pillows that had cradled Billy's head so many nights.  And now, never would again. 

"I need to ask you some questions," the detective said, a little more gently, "Are you up to it?" 

Dee closed her eyes.  The next thing she felt was his vast weight settling on to the end of the bed.  The mattress rocked and a memory sparked inside her mind, but it was just as quickly blanketed by the layers of cotton wool that had emerged to protect her.            "Dr Williams?"

"Yes."

"Your husband will be here in a moment to pick you up.  Can you answer some questions first?"

"Yes," she said dully, not even able to dredge up some trepidation about the coming encounter with James.

The detective cleared his throat, his voice dropping into the impersonal tone Dee imagined they all used for routine questions. 

"All right, Dr Williams.  What time did you find the deceased?"

"Midnight."

"Exactly midnight?"

"Maybe a couple of seconds after."

"That's pretty precise.  Was that coincidence, or was the deceased expecting you."

"He was," she answered, then found herself saying, "Would you mind not calling him 'the deceased'.  His name was Billy.  Billy McKenzie." 

There had been no grief or remorse in her voice.  Simply respect for the dead.

Dead. 

Behind her closed eyes, she saw again the stream of blood that had flowed from his ensuite into the bedroom, soaking the beige carpet.  She remembered standing with her back against the door she'd just burst through, not wanting to walk over and look in that small bathroom.  But her feet had moved of their own accord. 

There had been a horrible squelching as her shoe had pressed down on that blood-soaked carpet and then... 

She opened her eyes to find her head had swivelled of its own accord to face that doorway, and the stain.  It was so vivid, and yet so innocent.  Like virgin's blood...

"I know his name, Dr Williams," the detective said softly, but his voice seemed to come from a long way away.  She was lost - back at the moment she'd stood in that doorway.  She didn't react to the detective’s gentle touch on her arm.  Nor did she answer any more of his questions.  Except one.  Just before James led her away, the detective said, "I have to ask you this, Dr Williams.  Did you kill him, or was it suicide?"

Dee looked up then.  She said, "I killed Billy," but he didn't believe her and neither did James.  No-one would believe her.  Not that it mattered anymore.  Nothing mattered anymore.  Not even James' request for a divorce.  His embarrassment over her 'indiscretion' and the scandal that surrounded her involvement in Billy's death left her unmoved.  She was lost between worlds, unable to enter Billy's and rejected from James'.  The idea of a world that contained only herself and the memory of what she'd done was too horrible to contemplate. 

The withdrawal of funding for her research project came two days later, and at James suggestion she resigned her post at the University.  Uncaring, she signed everything away, scribbling her name on the bottom of anything placed in front of her.  Everything she'd worked her adult life for was gone within a week.  All except the money. 

James' old-world patriarchy had seen to it that every cent she'd ever earned had gone straight into her bank account.  He'd been the provider in their marriage, and even at the end of their relationship he took perverse pride in the fact that thanks to him, she would be financially independent.  He spoke much of her 'starting a new life', but Dee thought only of escape.  The numbness was starting to wear off, and she knew one day soon her emotions would reactivate.  An instinctive part of her demanded distance.  She had to be far away from the scene of Billy's death before she tried to come to terms with it.  Or it might engulf her.

Besides, the Gold Coast had never felt like home.  It had always been
James
' University she'd worked in,
James
'
house she'd lived in,
James
'
car she'd driven.  The cumulative effect was claustrophobic. And so one achingly beautiful morning while the butterflies were dancing over her roses and James was out shopping, she'd left his house with only the clothes she wore and her handbag.  A taxi had taken her to the airport where she'd boarded the first flight north, arriving at Cairns terminal to blinding midday heat and oppressive humidity. 

She'd been dazed for a time, but the taxi driver who'd pounced on her had requested a destination, which in turn had forced her mind to function.  Where?  She had no idea.  But the habit of luxury, fifteen years ingrained, came to the fore.

"Take me somewhere comfortable.  Secluded."

The drivers choice turned out to be a private resort.  The main hotel complex was huge and almost hedonistic in its appointments.  Her bedroom was all soft whites with drifting voile curtains and a canopy over the bed - the bathroom, a dazzling combination of marble and gold.  She purchased the clothes she needed from a boutique in the foyer downstairs, and discovered everything else she needed could be provided by room service. 

Her days became a routine of breakfast, lunch and dinner in the downstairs Restaurant.  Between meals she spent her time exercising in the gym, swimming in the Hotel pool or lying on her bed.  Occasionally she'd sit on the balcony, but she preferred the privacy of her room.

One day she'd have to return 'the real world'.  She knew that.  But the knowledge was a fuzzy thing, hidden behind the other things she couldn't look at yet.  She was marking time.  One day blended into another and each day Billy's face faded a little more in her memory, as did the horror of that blood and the split-second of soul-destroying guilt she'd experienced before her automatic defences had shut it down. 

Isolated from everyone she knew and any help she might have received, a lesser person might have cracked, or at least sought counselling, but Dee was a survivor.  She'd learned long ago to rely on herself, and an inner knowing told her that even this wound would heal, given enough time.  And solitude.

So she kept to herself, avoiding other guests and discouraging conversations with the staff who came to respect her need for privacy, leaving her free to dwell on her own thoughts. 

Mostly they were about James, strangely enough.  She found herself missing the intellectual conversations they used to have, the quiet camaraderie she'd 'deliberately and wantonly destroyed'. 

What a pompous old fool he'd been in the end.  So intent on saving face.  At the time she'd been too shell-shocked to care, but as she slowly thawed, she couldn't help thinking about it.  In those long afternoons lying on her bed, she wondered whether he'd really ever loved her.  Or whether his 'successful' marriage to a 'successful' Astronomer had been nothing more than window-dressing on his already 'successful' life.

And did it make a difference, she'd asked herself one night as she'd lain in the darkness of her room trying to find sleep.  Did it matter whether he'd loved her or not?  If she'd
felt
loved at the time, surely that was the important thing, the belief of love.  Better that than to have someone profess love and offer no show of it.  At least James had acted as though he loved her, even if his motives in marrying her had been avaricious.  It all came down to whether you wanted truth or happiness, she supposed. 

In her experience, the two were mutually exclusive.

She'd rolled around for another half hour, feeling something just below the surface, some emotion struggling to come up.  Something about James. 

Then a memory-feeling came to her.  The trip home that night.  She remembered how James had laid a plastic sheet over her seat to keep the blood off it.  And the nurse - an anonymous stranger he'd arranged to strip and bathe her - ostensibly to care for her, but what if he'd simply not wanted to touch her. 

And touch - comfort, had been exactly what she'd needed.  Despite her 'betrayal', she'd just been exposed to the sort of horrific scene that gave hardened policemen nightmares.  She'd needed physical comforting and sympathy, yet all James had been able to do was worry about what his colleagues would think.

A abrupt violent anger towards him surged up inside her, and without thinking she dived out of bed and wrenched open the French doors, her fingers gripping the door handles tensely as the humid night air drifted over her nakedness.