The Paying Guests (38 page)

By the time they had staggered the few yards out to the landing and across to the top of the stairs, Frances was exhausted. And Leonard’s coat was dragging; she set him down and did up its buttons. Then her eye was caught by something dark on the newel post. His hat! They’d forgotten all about it! God, what else might they have forgotten? She reached across and picked it up: his City bowler, stained on the inside, sour and fragrant from the rub of his hair. But how could they carry it, as well as carrying him? The only way was to wear it herself. She began to raise the hat to her head, then looked at Lilian, and couldn’t do it. She couldn’t! It was all too much. It was madness!

But they had moved Leonard this far. And it must be almost quarter to ten by now. If they moved him back, and unbound him, and she ran for the doctor, how would they explain the delay? How would they explain the fact that they had moved him at all? They should never have begun. They had made a mistake!
Let’s just try
, Lilian had said. But this wasn’t a thing, Frances realised now, that could be tried and then un-started. The panic rose in her again, that black, electric fear… And suddenly the only possible way to beat the fear off was to keep going. She put the hat on her head, and, gesturing for Lilian to be silent, she leaned over the banister, listening. Suppose her mother had come home, unnoticed, some time in the past half-hour? And mightn’t neighbours or passers-by have heard the sounds of argument? But the windows were closed, and the street, so far as she could judge it, was still. She could hear nothing but the pulse of the gaslight, the tick of clocks.

She nodded to Lilian, caught hold of Leonard again, and began to back her way down the stairs.

It was terrifyingly different from crossing the level floor. She had to grope blindly with her foot for each step, taking more and more of the weight of the tilting body as she descended. Lilian, above her, struggling for footholds of her own, held on to Leonard’s trouser-cuffs for as long as she was able, but soon one and then the other slipped from her fingers; the force of his collapsing limbs sent Frances swaying backward and she cried out, imagining herself going tumbling down with the body coming heavily after her. Sweating, straining, she at last found her balance, and managed the rest of the descent without Lilian’s help, simply hauling Leonard down like a sack of potatoes, so that his feet bumped and bounced about on the stairs and against the banisters.

At the bottom she let him sag completely to the floor and stood doubled over, panting after her breath. But she felt more exposed and anxious here, more impressed by the horrifying reality of it all. If her mother should walk in now —! The thought made her reach for Leonard again. Her arms, however, felt as though they’d been half torn from her shoulders, and her hands, for the moment, had lost their power to close. She plucked uselessly at his body, another wave of panic running through her. They couldn’t get him back up the stairs now, even if they wanted to!

She hooked her wrists under his armpits and nodded to Lilian. ‘Help me!’

But Lilian, after following her down, had sunk on to the lowest step. She was shivering. ‘I need to rest, just for a minute.’

‘There isn’t time. Come on!’

‘I can’t, Frances.’

Frances’s voice burst free by itself. ‘You made us do this! You have to! You have to!’

And as the cry faded there were footsteps in the street, followed by a man’s voice, and laughter: the sounds seemed to pass hideously close on the other side of the shut front door, and made them both leap back into life. Frances caught up the body properly and, again, began simply to drag it. ‘Go on ahead of me,’ she panted to Lilian, and Lilian, with a sob, scurried past her to get the back door open. The heels of Leonard’s shoes were leaving long scuff lines on the floor of the passage; now his foot caught the leg of a table and pulled it inches out of place. But Frances kept on without a pause, staggering backward into the kitchen and across to the open door, then practically falling down the two worn steps that led to the yard. And then she was out in the damp, coal-scented night. Lilian, following, was silhouetted for a moment in the bright oblong of the doorway, but once the door was closed the yard was lighted only by the glow of the curtained kitchen window, and seemed full of shadow.

Frances, in sheer relief to be out of the house, let go Leonard’s body so that it slumped forward like a Guy Fawkes over its own splayed legs. She went to the wall of the WC to lean against the bricks. Her arms were trembling, the strength in them gone. It was as much as she could do to raise a hand to her sweating face. She lifted the hat from her forehead and it felt like something made of lead.

Even now, though, they mustn’t rest. They must keep going. The yard was not so dark, after all. She could see very clearly Lilian’s ash-pale, tear-wet features. She could make out Leonard’s lolling hands, the white of his cuffs and his collar, the yellow cushion bound so grotesquely to his head. But she was conscious, too, that what they had to do next – get him down the garden and into the lane – was the most dangerous part of the whole business. She had to gather her thoughts, hang on to her nerve. She beckoned to Lilian, felt for her hand, and spoke in an urgent whisper.

‘We’re nearly there. It isn’t far now. Say, fifty steps. You can take fifty steps, I know it. But, listen. This is important. Once we’ve started down the garden we mustn’t let Leonard drop. We mustn’t let his feet drag, even. There mustn’t be any marks on his clothes or his shoes to show that he’s been carried. You understand? Lilian? You’ve got to keep tight hold of his ankles. We’ve got to go quickly, too, but silently. As silently as we possibly can. Now, wait here. I’m going to go a little way down, to be sure that no one’s about. Keep him like this, with his shoulders high —’

‘Don’t leave me with him!’

‘Just for a moment! Keep him like this, away from the wet ground.’

Lilian’s fingers clutched at hers, but she broke free and stole across to the start of the lawn. She picked her way along the path and then she paused, turning her head. The darkness here was much deeper than the darkness of the yard, and there was mist and chimney-smoke in it, making the air feel flannelly. Even so, the sensation of openness and exposure was terrifying. She could hear no voices or movements from any of the gardens close by, but beyond the wall, through the leaves of the trees, she could see lights at the Goldings’, lights at the Desboroughs’: that meant that any of her neighbours, should they chance to be looking out, could also see her. Or, could they? How concealing was the darkness? She wasn’t sure. She ought to have tested it. She ought to have made Lilian come and stand here while she herself remained indoors, peering out from her bedroom window. There wasn’t time for it now. Lilian’s strength was failing. Her own was failing, too. And in any case, she thought again, what else could they do? Having brought Leonard down here, they had to get rid of him somehow.

Making her way back to the yard, looking again at the rosily lighted windows of her own and her neighbours’ houses, she had the stifling sensation that she was putting herself beyond the reach of those warm, ordinary rooms, cutting herself off for ever from all that was decent and calm.

Lilian put out her hands to her the moment she stepped down from the lawn. Leonard lay slumped where they had left him, looking more than ever like some sort of horrible dummy. Frances braced herself to catch hold of him.

‘Are you ready?’ she whispered. ‘And remember what I said, about not letting go. We must keep to the path, too. The grass is wet. We don’t want to leave footprints on it. Now, quickly, but quietly. Fifty steps, that’s all. Fifty steps, and then it’s finished.’

With a tearing of muscles she heaved Leonard up, fought for and found a better grip on him, and then, feeling Lilian raise his ankles, she stepped backward and they were off. The soles of their shoes seemed loud on the path, and their breaths instantly grew laboured and noisy, but they went more swiftly than Frances had hoped for – impelled in part by the weight of their burden, but more by the prick of their own fear. Only once did Lilian seem to be about to lose her hold: Frances felt the tug and jolt of her groping hands, heard the sobbing catch of her breath. But her pace didn’t fail, even then; they forced themselves onward, and were soon at the far garden wall. Here they had to set Leonard down again. Frances stood listening at the door to the lane. When she was sure that all beyond was still, she carefully lifted the bar of its latch and, inch by inch, she drew the door open. The darkness that met her was so complete, her gaze seemed to slide about on its surface. The temptation rose in her, shamefully strong, simply to bundle Leonard into it, to close the door on him, to run away. But they mustn’t do that! There was still so much to do, still so much care to be taken.

She waited, listening again, then groped her way back to Lilian, and they took up Leonard’s body for the final time. She had hoped to carry him far along the lane, but their strength gave out almost at once: he slid from their fingers as if weary of the journey himself, and she knew that they simply had to let him lie where he had fallen. In the absolute darkness he had become invisible. She squatted beside him and went over him with her hands, straightening his coat, neatening his trouser-cuffs – thinking of how his clothing must have got tugged and twisted on its passage through the house. If only she could see what she was doing! If only she had light, and time! But she’d already lost track of how long they had spent on him, and now, alarmed by sounds from a street near by, the creaking open of a car door, the starting of an engine, she gave up on his clothes and felt her way to his head. She carefully unwound the scarf; that came easily enough. But the cushion was more resistant: it had stuck to his scalp and had to be coaxed free. God knew what sort of a mess that was making of the wound. God knew what the cushion might have left behind it in the way of threads or dye. She ought to have thought of that. Why hadn’t she thought of that?

It was too late now. Quickly, she groped across the surface of the lane, and in a patch of grass and bramble she found a stone with a smooth, round edge – an edge, as near as she could judge it, resembling the base of the stand-ashtray. She went back to Leonard, lifted his head and put the stone underneath it. At once, the head and the stone wobbled. As a deception it felt hopeless, clownish. But it was the best that she could contrive. And after that there was nothing to do but leave him.

But, now that the moment had come, she was unable to tear herself away. It seemed such a terrible thing, to leave him, with his broken head and only a stone for a pillow. To leave him there, in the choking darkness! It seemed worse than killing him. She put out her hands, and they met his face. She passed her fingertips over his stubbly cheek, his chin, his mouth. Beneath the bristles of his moustache his lips were soft as a woman’s.

The touch of a hand on her arm made her cry out: it was Lilian, reaching for her. They clung together for a second, then hurried back to the doorway in the wall, going through it with a stumble, clipping each other in their haste. Frances closed and latched the door, and they started down the garden; only when they were halfway along it did she remember the wretched bowler hat, still sitting sweatily on her head. Leaving Lilian to hobble to the house with the scarf and the cushion, she returned to the lane and got the door open again.

But here, at the last, her courage failed her. She couldn’t bring herself to grope her way through the darkness to Leonard’s body. Instead she tore the hat from her head and simply flung it into the void. An instant later she caught the thud of it, striking the surface of the cinder lane and bouncing jauntily away.

Back indoors, a frantic series of tasks awaited her. She saw to the first of them at once, scrubbing the blood and the dirt from her hands at the scullery sink, then wetting a cloth and going hastily over the floor of the kitchen and the hall, mopping up the trail of mud and blades of grass that Lilian’s shoes had left behind them, and wiping away the marks of Leonard’s dragging heels.

Lilian herself was up in her sitting-room, collapsed on the sofa. She raised her head when she saw Frances and said weakly, ‘I started to tidy, but I couldn’t. I’m sorry —’

‘It’s all right.’ Frances covered her over with the blanket. ‘It’s all right. I can do it.’

The room was just as they had left it, with its grisly chaotic floor. She stood and looked at it all, and for a moment her thoughts faltered. What ought she to do next? Her mind was a terrifying blank. Then her brain lurched back into life. She must get rid of anything with blood on it, of course. Thank God for the fire, still blazing in the grate! She added another shovelful of coal, then ran to her bedroom for the bowl containing Lilian’s cast-off clothing and went about flinging things into it, the cushion and the scarf, but also the balls of wool and the paper patterns that had lain on the floor around Leonard’s head. The patterns had caught the worst of it. Only a scattering of coin-sized spots of crimson seemed to have got on to the carpet itself.

She burned the scarf first. It gave a twitch, like a snake, the moment she dropped it on to the heat, then burst into yellow flame and steadily shrivelled up into nothing. And the sight of it disappearing into the heart of the fire like that laid the first calming touch upon her panic: she began to think more coherently, to act more decisively. She took up the cushion next. It was a ghastly thing to handle, weighty with blood – and far too big, she realised, to burn in one piece. She had to fetch a pair of scissors and slice open its cover, then pull out its wet woolly innards, clump by clump. Only the fact that she had already had to deal with so much gore today enabled her to do it; even so, the revolting savoury sizzle with which the clumps went on to the fire brought her stomach into her mouth. But she was thankful, at least, that the cushion wasn’t feather: the stink of burning feathers would have been impossible to hide.

By now her hands were brown with blood again, the fingers adhering together, and her gingham apron looked like something from a butcher’s shop. Closing her mind to the horror of it, she tipped the remaining contents of the bowl on to the coals; she added the soiled napkin, then looked at the clock. It was gone ten – gone ten, and there was still so much to do! But the fire had given her confidence. She took the bowl and the scissors across to Lilian’s kitchen and carefully washed them; she fetched Lilian’s chamber-pot and emptied and washed that; and then she made a mixture of salt and water, returned with it to the sitting-room, and got to work on the stains on the carpet. The carpet would never come properly clean; there wasn’t the time for it. She ought to use starch, or peroxide – It couldn’t be helped. After five whole minutes of frantic soaking and dabbing, the spots had spread but lightened, become ghosts of themselves, haunting the gaudy pattern; she had to be satisfied with that. The cleaning-cloths went on to the fire, to steam and sizzle with everything else. The ashtray, the hideous ashtray, made her stomach heave again: there was a scrap of something pale, with hairs attached, clinging to its base. She plunged it into the coals, turning it to scorch and cleanse it; then, with a shudder, she wiped it and stuck it behind the sofa. What else? There must be more.
Think
,
Frances
.
Concentrate
. She remembered the packet that had held the pills: she ran and got it, and threw it on the flames. She examined her clothes, examined Lilian’s, and found smears of blood on their sleeves and skirts: she mixed more salt water and did what she could to sponge the smears away. She even thought of the uncooked pastry, sitting in the bowl on her kitchen table. She dashed down, covered it with a plate, and hid it in the pantry.