The Rabbit Girls(85)

‘Your friend hit Axel on the back of the head?’

‘With the phone,’ Miriam adds.

‘Once?’

Miriam nods quickly. Then remembers that no, she hit him twice. She doesn’t correct herself. She thinks of Eva, who saved her. Where is she? Miriam feels jittery and jumpy and cannot sit still.

She shows the officers the markings on her neck and finds it soothing that her voice is so deep and broken and every time she hears herself she knows it happened, she is speaking the truth.

‘We will need you to come to the station later,’ Officer Snelling says. ‘To take photos of your neck, and perhaps with a bit of rest things may make more sense to you, as I am aware it is early and you have had a shock.’

‘I am the evidence, right? I am not making this up. I am not ill. I have been hurt, physically hurt and I have a broken voice and a bruised neck,’ she says more to herself, a list of comforts: it did happen and it wasn’t all in her head. ‘They cannot put me away now, can they?’

‘Put you where?’

‘The hospital. Axel came over and offered to sign the divorce papers if I would sign myself into a mental facility. I said no, I’m not crazy.’ She stands and picks up the bag of medicines from the table. ‘He said he would drug me, make it look like, I don’t know what, then I would be admitted. I’m not crazy,’ she says, aware she has said this too much and the officers are looking at each other, again.

‘These are the drugs he said he would force on you?’ The officer collects the bag from Miriam’s hand and looks at the bottles.

‘Henryk Winter.’ Officer Snelling looks up.

‘That’s my father.’

‘How did Axel get these?’

‘He said from the hospice.’

‘Your father had medications here too? When you were caring for him?’ Officer Nikolls asks.

‘Can I take these?’ Officer Snelling interjects.

Miriam nods. ‘You believe me, right?’

‘What we need to do is discuss this with our sergeant, and talk further with Axel tomorrow. We’ll need you to come to the station to go over the events of this evening, but I think we should leave you alone now. Will you be okay?’

‘Yes,’ she says to their retreating backs.

On closing the door, she sees the dust on the skirting board, the light-pink stains on the beige carpet. Eva may have tidied up, but Miriam will clean until the carpet is beige again.

She opens every window and cleans every surface. She sets about making the house look right. The windows open, she hears calls of merriment from New Year parties that have yet to stop. The air is cold and black.

It isn’t until she looks at the dining-room table she remembers the letters are gone. But in a tiny mound, the only picture she has remains.

The shiny surface looks foreign now from the sea of white letters it had become.

‘That’s it then,’ she says aloud to the space around her.

She tries to place the little mound of paper back together. But she cannot. She pours the shards into an envelope in her father’s office and writes Michael’s name on the front. She places it on his desk with his paperweight on top. Returning to the living room she sits, finally allowing the tears to fall.





35





MIRIAM


She sips on herbal tea, checks her voice is audible and picks up the phone. The apartment is pristine, the windows ajar and the frosty breeze clean and cold.

‘Hi Sue, it’s Miriam Voight.’

‘Happy New Year to you,’ she says.

‘And to you.’

‘Is everything okay, you don’t sound good?’

‘Yes, fine,’ she croaks. ‘How’s Dad?’

‘He’s okay, no real change, although he has asked for Frieda again today. Is that your mum’s name?’

‘No, Frieda is an old friend.’

‘He’s settled and has sat up a few times. He’s still very disorientated, but we’ve changed his feeding tube today, the tube looks horrible on his face, so you’ll see that when you next come in. But it’ll give us some more scope for better sustenance, think that will do the trick. Poor man has been starved to death. What they do in those hospitals, I’ll never know.’ And with that Miriam hears a crunching on the other end. ‘Sorry, Miriam.’ Sue’s voice is muffled. ‘Just about to have a break and thought I’d have a quick bite, but it’s a bit crumbly.’ She laughs.

Miriam can’t help but smile. ‘Thanks, Sue.’

‘See you tomorrow?’

‘Yes.’ But as she places the phone down she cannot think of a single reason keeping her in the apartment: Eva has not come by, she has no letters, she doesn’t know what happened. She has nothing keeping her here.

In the outer hallway, she stumbles across a police officer, tall and thin, not one she has met before.

‘Miriam Voight?’

‘Yes.’

‘Would you mind coming down to the station to answer a few questions about the events that took place last night?’

Miriam shakes her head. ‘I don’t want to,’ she starts.

Lionel appears at her side. ‘Is everything all right, Miriam?’