My Dearest Jonah (26 page)

“Our father who art in heaven... ” her words began to take shape through the fracture of her voice. “Hallowed be thy name... ”

“There’s a whole bunch in a suitcase beneath the bed... please J don’t do this... ” I tried as more and more liquid cascaded around us, pooling between my splayed
fingers.

“Thy kingdom come thy will be done... ”

“The last should be in the mattress, J, please, that’s all of it, just look, it’s there... ” I pressed my hand to his ankle and felt it soak through the fabric of his
trousers towards that strong, lean calf.

“And the rest,” he said.

“On earth as it is in heaven... ”

“That’s it.”

“I know that’s not true.”

“Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses... ”

“Bullshit!” he slammed the can into my face and I felt blood cut through the coolness of the petrol as it snaked its way down my chin.

“She sold it J, it’s gone, the money’s all there, just about, God J you can’t have what’s not there - ”

He upturned the canister and raised it high so that the torrent became steadier, gushing down on us like a waterfall.

“As we forgive those who trespass against us... ”

“Oh baby, it could have been so much better than this. We could have been so much better than this.”

Even when dizzy with the fumes I found myself wondering which of us he was addressing.

“And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil... ”

The final drops echoed out as they merged with the pool around us.

“J, please don’t do this.”

“For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory... ”

I tried to stand up, half blind and leaden with fear. “J, God, please listen to me, I will do anything, I mean anything. Just let her go, please, please don’t do this.”

With the palm of his hand he pressed me back to the floor, my face hanging low so that all I could see were my bent knees and Eve wringing her hands in the fold of her stomach. “Darling,
it’s not personal. It’s just business.”

“For ever and ever... ”

I heard a match roar in his hand. There was a moment of still as the sulphur’s cackle dipped; its combustion merging smoothly with the steady burn of the narrow stick; the whole trailer
suddenly illuminated by its amber orb.

“Amen... ” Eve finished and raised her head gently. Her hand jutted out and wrapped itself around Kingpin’s leg, the other curved smoothly as she pressed a nail file into the
soft skin at the back of his knee, driving the metal blade all the way inside. “Verity go!” She gripped me by my arm and dragged me to my feet while she remained on the ground, working
the metal farther into his skin as Kingpin roared in agony, tumbling to one side like a felled giant.

I stood up, propelled by her force, and ran to the door. Kingpin grabbed Eve by the hair and drove her face into the ground. J cupped the match, which extinguished in the palm of his hand, and
made his way towards me. I felt air, the world, clear as rain in the desert, blow sweetly across my face before the door slammed shut. He pulled me back into the trailer and struck me so hard
across the face I lay motionless on the floor.

Kingpin rose, doubled over, and passed something to J who took Eve’s head in his hand and whispered something in her ear. She nodded and looked him straight in the eye as he pressed once
into the centre of her stomach. The whole time she didn’t flinch, not once.

Eve fell backwards gently, peacefully. Around her stomach a perfect rose began to bloom, its ruby stem trickling down between her legs. Her face turned towards me as she unfurled and relaxed;
shades of scarlet gilding the pale curve of her body. A tear rolled down my face as she closed her eyes and was still.

I heard Kingpin groan and slump in the corner of the room. Footsteps fluttered past me and then grew louder until I could feel the tip of his sole at the side of my head.

I turned to face Eve, certain only that whatever he took he would not be granted the gift of my scream. Any fear I felt I held on to like treasure. I felt my body double as his foot thrust into
my stomach, and then a second time as I snaked around myself. He knelt on top of me, my arms spread out and pinned beneath his knees. With the dull edge of the knife he traced my jaw line all the
way to my breastbone, popping my buttons as he went. Then he stopped and looked down. He pressed his hands into the pocket of my jeans and pulled out the pistol.

He smiled at me as he placed it carefully on the floor, next to which he rested the knife.

When I heard the sound of the match I seemed certain of my own death; certain that after a brief agony all would be lost. I suppose somewhere in the back of my mind I had always assumed that the
world ended with me; that with closed eyes darkness really was all that remained. But in those seconds, those long and frightening seconds, reality swept over me like a wave. If I were gone then
the world would carry on. If I did not turn up for work then someone else would. If my taxes went unpaid the economy would adjust accordingly.

But what if I stopped writing? Would my memory remain acute, Jonah? Or would it fade with the ink and the paper until years passed by and I became little more than a forgotten amusement? What am
I, I suppose is what I’m asking, and more importantly what am I to you?

I was granted no great epiphany as I closed my eyes and prayed that whatever came next would be as immediate as could be. There was no one moment that forced itself to the fore of my
mind’s eye, enlightening me as to my function, my purpose, my origin. It was as though a movie was playing behind a screen, and all I could do was piece together a narrative from the glimpses
of light and sound that flickered at the edges. Images grew and shrank, as strange and alien as another person’s photographs. I saw my mother, her face changing from rage to regret as was
ever the case, and my father asleep in the dark, cooled by the television’s cold light, an empty glass falling from his unconscious grasp. I saw flowers in summer, the gentle snow that
pre-empts the blizzard, a swing set, ribbons, I saw my lovers pass through me one by one, their faces shifting with each thrust; the wallpaper of my first home, the envelope of my first paycheque,
someone’s coffin, Eve dancing on that very first night I laid eyes on her, a hospital bed. And then you, somehow, your presence as real as all those things yet a thousand times as vital, like
a dark glitter scattered across all that went before and after.

I don’t know how many hours passed by after that. Whether they dismembered Eve before or after locating the money - almost all of which was gone when I returned - or whether Kingpin
remained lame, or died haemorrhaging from his injuries. I don’t know how badly I was beaten, or how the decision to spare my life was reached. Most devastatingly of all I don’t know
what became of Eve’s remains. I pray she is somewhere beautiful, somewhere quiet. Somewhere people may one day leave flowers, even without realising the significance. I pray that wherever she
is she’s at peace, and laughing, and forever in love.

All I do know is that I woke up alone and frightened, and you were all I had left.

Always,

Verity

Dear Verity,

When I returned I found myself tearing apart my own house in the dead of night.

I turned every stone, so to speak, upending furniture, reaching into spaces that had never seen the likes of soap and water, puncturing plaster in speckled patterns. Occasionally sanity would
prevail and I had to remind myself that I was working to a remit as I began smashing holes into the walls out of sheer frustration. After an hour of scrabbling about on my hands and knees I
resigned myself firstly to failure, and then thought, perhaps, that Michael could have been lying all along. The ruse would not be beyond him had he thought that it might lead to him securing my
services in whatever area he had them earmarked for. But even I couldn’t fool myself that easily.

I walked to the kitchen thirsty and exhausted, and took a sip of tepid water from a cup on the counter. The garden was still and peaceful, only just visible beneath the moon’s dusty light.
Flowers were beginning to take hold where before there had only been dirt. The soil, tilled and quenched, was now rich and inhabitable, and led in a perfect runway towards my beautiful new
workhouse.

I crossed the garden in my stocking feet, dew dampening the cuff of my jeans. Inside, the space was as I had left it. I took both halves of your letter from my pocket and returned it to the box
where I store everything you send me. Black fingerprints now lined the pages I had taken such care over - flexing the edges after reading so that they were as fresh as the day they were posted -
and streaked down from the sentences that must have particularly amused Michael. I sealed the box and placed it back on the highest shelf.

I pushed my chair to one side and took out a hammer. The first floorboard proved the trickiest. I jammed the claw into its slim cleft and pulled as hard as I could until I fell backwards, the
plank splintering into two separate lengths and jutting upwards. I reached down, too tired to so much as turn on a flashlight, and pulled a handful of weeds. I repeated the process again and again.
By the sixth floorboard I was almost hysterical, as close to tearful as I think I’ve ever been. I reached down and patted the cold ground. Nothing. I pressed farther, my shoulder digging into
the remaining wood of the ground. My fingertips brushed something soft. I inched forwards, nearly there, and managed to grasp its edge.

I removed my arm from the hole, a small cloth sack gripped tight in my fist. Coin and paper moved about inside as I passed it from hand to hand, almost relieved to find my madness denied by the
horrible evidence.

I rolled the bag as tightly as its contents would allow before hiding it beneath my shirt and locking he door of the shed.

Above me a light turned on. Mrs Pemberton, dressed in a nightgown and curlers, appeared at the window like a ghost. “What’s that hollering down there?” she said, still shaky
from sleep.

“Nothing Mrs Pemberton,” I said as I made my way back to the house.

“I heard a ruckus.”

“There was no ruckus.”

“Well I wouldn’t be standing at this window if you’d been going about your business quiet as a dormouse. I can’t hear my evening prayers.”

“Evening prayers were six hours ago Mrs Pemberton. Go back to bed.”

“That’s enough of that smart mouth. What you doing causing trouble at this hour?”

“I’m sorry, I’m done.”

“I don’t like this,” she said, closing her window. “I don’t like this one bit.”

Back in the house, or what was left of it, I sat on the floor, counting the bag’s contents. There was fifty dollars in notes, and fifteen in coin. I placed the piles of
silver neatly on my kitchen table. In the morning I would bury them as deep as I could dig.

I lit a fire in the front room and accepting sleep to be a missed opportunity began to burn each dollar one at a time. I watched as the ink tainted the flame and then curled around itself before
disappearing to nothing but a black fly that danced up the chimney. One by one they hissed and disappeared.

I bundled the empty sack into a ball and threw it onto the flames, sitting back at the sudden increase in heat and light. I sat all night long amidst the sorry remainders of my little house and
watched as the logs burnt themselves to nothing.

In the morning I didn’t make it to Caleb’s. I crawled into bed and lay in a daze as the seconds and hours passed, rewound, and passed again until once more it was
dark. Monday came and went, as did Tuesday. I did not attend work. I did not leave the house. I just lay in wait, knowing that the second Michael walked through my door everything would change and
it would change forever.

On the second day a knock sounded out sometime after dusk.

“Hey Jonah... Jonah... you in there?” Harlow yelled at the locked door.

I remained silent.

“Me and the boys been real worried about you. I hope everything’s okay in there. Jonah - ”

I heard a thump as he pressed his forehead to the glass pane.

“Jonah, you in there?”

I turned my face to the wall, sealing my bedroom curtain shut with an outstretched leg. All was quiet again and then a knock, this time louder, caused me to jump but did not rouse me from my
daze.

Harlow banged on the kitchen window, calling my name.

“What’s going on down there?” I heard Mrs Pemberton call

“Just checking on my friend there, ma’am,” said Harlow, now inches from my bedroom curtain.

“I never trusted that boy. Never trusted him one bit. Wouldn’t surprise me to find his face on the six o’clock news tonight.”

“Well now that kind of talk’s not helping no-one, is it?”

“Watch that mouth of yours!” yelled Mrs Pemberton from afar, “I’m just telling it like it is. Anyway, I have a mind to call the po-lis.”

“You do huh?” said Harlow, a note of amusement in his voice.

“’All I know you could be a burglar, sniffing round other people’s gardens like you got the right.”

“Is that so?”

“Don’t think I won’t call them.”

“You do what makes you happy, ma’am. I’ll be back same time tomorrow, if you think it’d aid them in my capture,” he said with a chuckle.

Mrs Pemberton muttered something before slamming her bedroom window shut, and all was silent.

From a crack in the curtain, behind which I sat bolt upright on a kitchen chair, a dark shadow cast across the full length of the window as Harlow pressed his body towards my bedroom.

“That what they call a neighbourhood watch?” he said, the long stretch of darkness growing and shrinking as he swayed on the balls of his feet. “Look kiddo I just want to know
you’re okay. I’m not mad about the work, no-one is. Caleb said he aint seen you all weekend. Truth be told - ” he said, clearing his throat and resuming with a softer voice, more
vulnerable in its tone, “ - I want to talk to you myself, too. Barbara’s close to tearing the hair clean out of her head. You see, Aimee’s been gone since the fair. Wouldn’t
be the first time she’s pulled this sort of trick, granted. Doesn’t mean it don’t scare the hell out of us time and time again though - ”