She picked the berries – round, black, like small cherries – in the dead of night.
It was a black-eyed, belladonna sort of night, with darkness she could touch, feel; darkness that clung to her clothing as she glided, cobwebs trailing from her face, between the high hedges.
She knew where to stop; knew the exact spot; knew where to start plucking with deft fingers the smooth, black shapes from the shapeless blackness.
In her kitchen the next morning, as she worked the sliced berries into a cake mixture with her bony fingers, she found herself reading aloud from a piece of card propped up against a flour bag. Her voice was shrill with excitement.
Symptoms begin with dryness of the mouth and tongue, and some difficulty in swallowing. Skin flushed, developing into a rash on the upper body; headache and giddiness give way to hallucinations and then to maniacal delirium. Respiration speedy, pulse rapid. Later, signs of paralysis, passing into sleep, then coma. Death due to respiration failure. Distinctive appearance: pupils so dilated that eyes appear black.
She paused, laughing to herself, before reading on:
The witches of old prepared ointments from belladonna which they then massaged into their vaginas to bring on hallucinations, to create a sensation of flying.
The cake went into the oven. She cackled her satisfaction.
‘There, Henry,’ she cooed that afternoon. ‘A treat for your tea. Your favourite: a nice cherry cake.’
‘No thank you, dear.’ Henry’s voice was cold, mechanical. ‘I’ve gone off cherry cake. Your cherry cake, anyway. And your wholesome mushroom soup. Simply lost my appetite for them. Can’t think why.’
He knew! The old bugger knew!
No – of course he didn’t! How could he? Even he couldn’t access the dark recesses of her mind.
Oh, damn the man! Thoughts of toxic fungi and deadly nightshade would now have to be abandoned. He was spoiling things, as usual!
She fell to musing. Fly Agaric: Amanita muscaria. Deadly Nightshade: Atropa belladonna. She chanted the names in a sing-song voice, intoning like a priest. Oh, such a shame. Like poetry, they were, those words. The Latin names, particularly. So musical. Music you could die to, surely?
It was shortly after he came out of hospital that she finally decided Henry had to go.
They hadn’t kept him in for long. They didn’t these days. More was the pity! Eight blissful days, that’s all it was. The happiest eight days of her married life.
Oh, the freedom! No cooking: she ate out, most of the time. No catatonic nights in front of the television: she went to the theatre twice. No abstinence: she got through two bottles of gin while he was away. She was even on the verge of getting off with a chap in the bar of the Civic Theatre – until, that is, she reminded herself that it was a man she was seeking freedom from. She didn’t really like men, she had decided. The idea of them was sometimes appealing: the reality was something else. Henry had shown her that.
During those eight days, it was like being single again. No one arguing with her decisions, no one carping, no one complaining, no one finding fault: the silence was eloquent, music to her ears. It was lovely. The contrast was what finally made up her mind for her. For if he had been difficult, almost unbearable, before he went in, he was at once impossible, contemptible, when he came out.
The hospital had saved his life, he declared. It had not only opened his abdomen, it had opened his eyes. Delicious food, comfortable beds, impeccable standards of hygiene – and above all, devoted care and attention. In fact, he announced, a couple of weeks after he was discharged, so wonderful were the nursing staff that he had invited one of them to come and have a meal with them the following Friday.
Staff Nurse Jenkins – Amie, with an ‘ie’, she had introduced herself – was big and blowzy, loud and confident. Maureen didn’t take to her one bit. Henry, though, was clearly quite smitten. Each time she returned to the room from the kitchen, she found them on the settee, tete-a-tete, chatting away about the hospital, making no attempt whatsoever to include her in the conversation.
It was the same during the meal: Henry and Amie chatting in a warm bubble of intimacy, from which she was totally excluded. She felt like a hired hand, employed to cook and serve the meal, to ensure that everything went without a hitch, but expected to keep her distance.
There was a row about it afterwards.
‘I will not be treated like a servant,’ she cried, alight with anger. ‘Fetching and carrying, slaving away – while you and that woman play footsie under our table.’
‘You’re over-reacting, dear,’ he replied, staying calm and detached, shooting her that smug, irritating little smile of his. ‘We had a lot to talk about, that’s all. Hospital gossip, mainly. You wouldn’t have been interested.’ He paused, sighing wearily. ‘You know, you amaze me sometimes. It’s almost as if you resent the place, and the people, who actually saved your husband’s life. It’s true: but for Amie, and folk like her, I’d be dead!’
‘As if I need reminding,’ she replied. ‘But no matter what you say, that woman’s not coming here again. You can go somewhere else to show your gratitude. Either that, or you can do the catering yourself!’
That had been the turning point. That was when the plotting had started, when she decided he had to go.
But how? By what means? Ideas like the poisonous fungi and the deadly nightshade had come and gone, dismissed for what they were: impractical, irrational, mad-cap. She was getting desperate. At this rate she would end up lashing out, braining him with the nearest heavy object.
No, too messy! There had to be another way; a cleverer way; a way that would avoid detection. The perfect crime: that’s what she was after.
But then again…? If she played the waiting game, she might not have to resort to crime at all. If things went well between Henry and the ghastly Amie-with-an-‘ie’, the old bugger might simply run off with her! For they were still as thick as thieves. Only recently, he had brought her home after a night out somewhere. It was late when they arrived, and she had scurried off to bed to avoid meeting them. But later, when she crossed the landing to the bathroom, she could hear them downstairs giggling like a couple of kids.
Yes – box clever. Be patient. Trust that adultery would soon lead to desertion.
But that plan appeared to founder when Henry came home one night looking very dejected. He took himself straight off to his room, saying nothing. Was it all over? Like herself, had Amie-with-an-‘ie’ discovered his true character, how unamenable he really was? If so, so much for the waiting game. Damn! Such a shame all round. They deserved one another, that was for sure – and she had deserved to profit from their sordid little affair.
In the days that followed, she kept a close eye on him. He appeared so depressed, so cowed – the latter to the point of displaying unwonted compliance – that she almost felt sorry for him. But not quite. His misery was almost too intense, too theatrical. It crossed her mind more than once that he might have been acting. But if so, why? What was his game? She didn’t know what to think. All she knew was that he wasn’t to be trusted. She couldn’t quite bring herself to buy the notion that his chastening (if indeed that was what it had been?) might have made a new man of him. And anyway, to be honest, she didn’t like the new Henry any more than she had liked the old one.
Gone were the scathing remarks, true. And gone – for the moment, anyway – were the thinly-veiled insults. But there was just something about him – something that made her feel uneasy. He was up to something, she was sure. He had always been up to something. Nothing had changed.
He did have her wondering one day, though. Right out of the blue, he suggested a weekend away. And in Robin Hood’s Bay, of all places, where they had honeymooned, where their ill-fated marriage had begun. They would stay at the same hotel, he announced, and revisit their favourite haunts. ‘Ah!’ he enthused, ‘those beautiful, quiet beaches, those towering, majestic cliffs. It’ll do us both good.’
She was amazed. And because she was totally incapable of taking his invitation at face value, she gave herself one of her headaches trying to work out what his little game might be. Not seeking any kind of reconciliation, she hoped. Because if he was, he could forget that! She had put up with too much. Why she had married him in the first place, she would never know! She had never loved him. She had simply liked the idea of being married. Even now, she still clung on to parts of her marriage: her comfortable home, for example, and money to buy nice clothes. No Amie-with-an-‘ie’ was ever going to force her to give all that up.
She remained puzzled, but she decided to go along with the idea. More out of curiosity than anything. She was intrigued. On one or two occasions recently, she had come upon him unexpectedly and had found him smiling. Not his usual weasel smile. More your enigmatic, Mona Liza, I-know-something-you-don’t-know sort of smile. What was he playing at?
No matter: the sea air would do her good, she thought. And it would be interesting to see how the place had changed. Not much, she imagined. She remembered wandering through the old part of the village, exploring its crooked little ginnels. No room for so-called development in there. Scarcely space to swing a cat round.
Yes, she would go. She would avoid showing too much interest or enthusiasm, of course. Don’t give him the satisfaction! But she was prepared to be civil, at least. Yes, keep a cool, polite distance.
For his part, Henry was civility itself. He had booked two single rooms – thank goodness: she had dreaded having to play happy couple charades – and there were no snide comments, no criticisms, no put-downs. It was amazing. Not like Henry, at all.
On the second night she announced her intention to take a short stroll along the cliffs before dinner.
‘Yes, you always loved that walk.’ Henry looked pleased. ‘Think I’ll take a turn with you. Do you mind?’
He had asked so politely that she felt she could hardly refuse. When she suggested taking the car as close as they could to the path in order to spend as much time as possible on the cliff-top, Henry had meekly agreed. She couldn’t get over how reasonable he was being.
They walked in silence much of the time. He seemed to be in a reflective mood, and she was pleased to be left to her own thoughts. She wasn’t sure she trusted this new, accommodating Henry. He normally disliked walking, and his recent surgery would have given him every excuse to decline. But he stayed the course, and without complaint.
In fact, at the end, he seemed reluctant to return to the car. He stood on the cliff-top, rock-still, for ages, saying nothing, just staring out to sea. She enjoyed the view with him for a few minutes. It was magnificent. The setting sun was suffusing the water with a liquid gold, creating a Turneresque canvas which kept changing in pattern, tone and texture with the movement of the sea.
Suddenly she shivered violently.
‘What’s the matter, dear?‘ he said, coming out of his reverie. ‘Someone walk over your grave?’
‘No, just getting cold, that’s all,’ she replied. ‘We ought to be getting back.’
‘Oh, don’t spoil the moment, dear,’ he said. ‘We’ve plenty of time. They don’t stop serving till ten.’
‘As you wish,’ she said abruptly. Ah, I knew it couldn’t last! Always want your own way, don’t you? Always want to be in control. ‘But give me a few minutes. I’ll have to get a sweater.’
When she returned twenty minutes later he was still standing where she had left him, staring out to sea, motionless. His back looked broad and dark and solid in what was now a failing light.
Careful! she almost warned. It was an involuntary response, dredged up from a time all those years ago when she might have worried for his safety. But another thought quickly intruded.
Oh, the irony! The delicious irony! All these weeks of plotting – and here, suddenly, by chance, the perfect opportunity. It would be all too easy…
Yes, go for it! Seize the moment. But be careful. Don’t rush it. This calls for stealth. Stealth and control. That’s it – nearly there. The last few yards, remember, are crucial. The ground is rough. Watch your step in the fading light. Good – that’s it. Control your approach. Control your breathing. Watch your feet. Yes, perfect. Nearly there. One final step. One firm push. Exit Henry!
She put all her force into the lunge; but just as her hands went forward she noticed, too late, that Henry’s head – that faintly ridiculous head of his, far too small for his body, the beaky nose far too large for its face – was half-turned towards her. He couldn’t have heard her approach, surely? No, it was almost as if he had anticipated it. Oh, my God! But the realization came too late. Henry suddenly, very neatly, side-stepped to his left, leaving her off-balance, pushing against the evening air.
For a long, terrifying second there was a desperate flailing of arms as she fought to regain her balance. Her frightened eyes, popping out from her anguished face, flashed sideways at Henry, pleading for assistance. Her mouth flew open, releasing a shriek of terror. It was answered only by the cry of a passing black-headed gull.
Henry smiled.
‘Oh, are you off now, dear?’ he enquired, as she commenced her fall.
His voice was drowned in a rush of air as she plummeted down at breath-taking speed to the rack of rock and sea, to the brief smack of splintering pain, waiting in the black, final black, night below.
‘I see. Going without a word, are we? How rude!’
His smile grew broader.
‘Never mind. Goodnight, dear.’
(c) Patrick Belshaw 2008