The Woman Next Door(27)

Melissa can feel the slender threads fixing her to a state of control begin to twist and buckle again.

Hester walks into the kitchen with a new boldness. As though she owns the space.

‘What have you got there?’ cries Melissa. ‘We’re not going on a fucking picnic, are we?’

The other woman’s mouth primps into a tight squiggle of disapproval.

‘Of course we’re not,’ says Hester, eyebrows raised. ‘I’m merely using this to transport all the cool packs I could find in my freezer. We don’t want things to start getting unpleasant in the van, do we? I don’t know how soon there may be a smell.’

Melissa breathes slowly, in through her nose and out through her mouth, just like she had been taught to do at her yoga classes. They are going to pack Jamie in ice packs like some kind of cooked ham. Then they’re going to throw him away.

Practical help like this is what she needs. But it feels all wrong. Grotesque.

‘What about the pestle?’ she manages to say. She almost said, ‘weapon’ instead.

Hester gestures at the bag.

‘In there, wrapped, but washed. I used some of Terry’s special cleaning fluids on it, but really, I think we have to get rid of it, to be on the safe side. The other bit too. The bowl. But you can do that later. The priority now is … well …’, she trails off.

Both women look down at the body cooling on the floor.





HESTER


I think I’m doing a very good job of keeping this terrible situation under control, given the circumstances.

Melissa looks rather wild. I’ve never seen her like this before. She keeps speaking really fast and then staring into space. She doesn’t seem to be able to focus on anything.

Luckily I am feeling sharper than I have for a long time.

I don’t think it is too fanciful to say that this was maybe meant to be. All those years that we have known each other, perhaps they were all building up to this strange day when Melissa really needed me? After all, what would she do if I wasn’t here right now?

Together we work to lay out the large dust sheets that she has found in my absence. We work in silence and all I can hear is her rather heavy breathing. I keep flicking glances at her to make sure she isn’t going to become hysterical again, but she seems quieter now, as though the reality of this situation is finally sinking in. It’s a relief.

But once the sheets are neatly laid out, we both stare down at the body. Neither of us wants to touch the thing really.

Then, to my relief, she hands me a pair of disposable gloves. They feel slippery and unpleasant in my hands. She is already wearing some, I notice with surprise. A little late for that, I think, but I say nothing.

‘Right,’ she says, with only the slightest quiver in her voice, ‘let’s move him onto the plastic sheets.’

That’s my girl.

She lifts the arms, with only a small moue of distaste, and I take hold of the feet.

We both haul with all our might, but goodness, it is heavy. He was quite a short man, but strongly built. It seems death has now added its own burden – do bodies become heavier post-mortem? I have no idea – but he is almost impossible to move.

Melissa’s face is quite pink and I can feel sweat breaking out all over my body. She releases the arms to the ground with a strange gentleness. I feel like pointing out that he is hardly going to bother about being manhandled now, but sense this wouldn’t be well received.

We exchange dispirited looks. All we have managed to do is cause the dust sheet to bunch up unhelpfully.

‘We’ll have to roll him,’ I say, getting down on my knees, despite the discomfort from my arthritic joints. ‘Come on, Melissa, I can’t do this alone!’

Melissa hurriedly gets down to the floor at the other end of the man. We straighten the limbs in an attempt to get the body into the right shape to be rolled. His shoulders seem to be in the way now.

Sweat pools unpleasantly at my armpits as we push and pull, push and pull, both grunting with exertion. We make progress inch by inch.

It feels like forever but somehow, eventually, we have managed to get the body onto the dust sheet. But just as one problem is solved, another presents itself.

How are we, two women, going to transport it to the van, let alone to Dorset and down a well?

It’s funny, but despite all this, there is still no question of abandoning her. I am in this for the duration now, as they say.

‘Wait!’ she says suddenly. ‘What are we meant to do with these ice packs?’

I regard her with a sense of satisfaction. Now she sees the wisdom of my plan, despite being quite rude about it when it was suggested.

I believe there is no point pretending that certain realities don’t exist. At some point, that body is going to go ‘off’. But I’m never one to crow so I simply ask her to pass the cool packs. I place the smaller ones underneath the small of the back and knees; the larger, I lay on top of the body. Without speaking, Melissa goes to her own freezer and finds some more, which we arrange in a similar fashion. This is going to add considerable weight but I think this is unavoidable.

We manage to roll the sheeting around the bulky shape until we have something rather like a large plastic mummy lying before us.

It reminds me too of a chrysalis. But there will be no rebirth here.

Then it strikes me that maybe there will. Maybe it is the dawning of a new level of friendship between Melissa and myself. I like this thought.