The Green Flash (49 page)

‘Where are you off now?' she said.

I began to knot my tie.

‘Going home to Mother?' she asked.

‘You're back soon,' I said. ‘Did your friends need their beauty sleep?'

She watched me. The tie had got stuck, and I carefully took it off, knotted it again. I hung my dinner suit in the wardrobe, put on a tweed jacket.

‘As a matter of tact,' she said, ‘I thought it was a good joke. Everybody did except you.'

‘Ah,' I said, ‘you know what it is: Scottish lack of humour.'

‘Lack of something. Could it be conviction?'

I began to transfer my wallet and other things from one jacket to the other. ‘Conviction of what?'

‘You tell me.'

‘No,' I said, turning to stare her down. ‘ You tell
me
!'

She smiled a bit crookedly. ‘ Everyone else in that room knew where they stood. So they saw the joke. You didn't.
Quod erat
, as they used to say at school.'

‘This is the last time we ever need meet,' I said, ‘so finish what you want to say.'

‘Why? Why slink out? What are you afraid of, David?'

‘Strangling you,' I said.

She laughed. ‘ Take me to bed. Prove what you can prove. My neck's waiting for you.'

A sudden lurch of desire came on me for this slut of a woman. But there was so much anger in it I drew back.

‘Erica,' I said wearily. ‘It's finished. Go away. Let me leave in peace.'

She said: ‘To think I stood them up to come back and see you. Well, well … God, I need a drink!'

It was the last thing she needed in my opinion, but anything to get her away from the door. She went out, and as I finished my packing, I heard the kitchen table being moved and thought, what's she up to now?

I glowered around the room. Find a permanent place, then send someone over for what's left.
Leave
the case with the broken clasp: you can't go migrating round London at this time of night with more suitcases than you can carry. For that matter Erica can burn the lot.

Two ways out of my bedroom: one through hers and one through my bathroom, which had a second door leading into the kitchen. Not sure which way the cat would be likely to jump, so chose the kitchen.

She was there.

There in the opposite doorway. Quick as light, she'd got out of her evening clothes and into her fencing array. Black mask, tight trousers, white padded tunic, gym shoes, the one fighting hand gloved. In her hand was her sword. When I stopped in the doorway she pointed her sword at the table. On it were my fencing clothes and my weapon.

‘On guard,' she said.

Bags in hand, I took a deep breath and looked at her. I said: ‘Go and jump in the Serpentine. It will cool you off.' ‘Your kit's there,' she said. ‘Put it on. Spare a spar for an old

scrub.'
‘Take your jokes elsewhere.'
‘No joke, boy. I'll pin you to that wall.'
She came forward a yard or so and made a lunge in my direction.

She was deliberately short, but the point seemed not too far from

my face. It continued to flicker in the bright neon light, in and out,

up and down. I noticed her footwork was good; champagne hadn't

impeded that.
I said: ‘I'll send round for the rest of my stuff tomorrow.'
‘Scared to try me?' she said. ‘I'll bet you a hundred pounds I

score ten hits to your one.'
I took another step forward and she gave me a prick on the

arm.
‘Old times' sake,' she said. ‘Fight me and we'll go to bed together.'
‘You fool!' I shouted. ‘Take
no
for an answer!'
She pricked me on the neck. ‘ You can't
dérober
. It's too late.'
I put the cases down. ‘ What are you trying to
do
, Erica, patch

up a broken bottle? There's nothing
left
!'
She jabbed me in the other arm. In temper I swung round and

picked up ray sword from the table, made a fierce hacking sweep

at her with the blade. She danced easily out of reach, I pointed

my épée at her and the two swords clashed.
‘Put your things on,' she said, ‘ otherwise I might hurt you.'
I said: ‘Get out of the way!'
The swords dashed again. I made a lunge at her and she took

the point on hers, sidestepping and executing the perfect parry.
‘Aah!' she shouted, as her point made a small rip in my coat.
I was almost at the door but she counter-attacked swiftly, and

I had to stop in my tracks and back away from a series of sharp

probing jabs that came near to my sword arm.
‘First blood!' she said. ‘ Put your things on! I can't fight you like

this!'
There was a trickle of something coming down to my wrist. She

was laughing.

‘Armistice!' she declared, lowering her weapon. ‘ I give you two minutes to put your things on.'

I grabbed one suitcase, but instantly she was in fencing position again. I flung the bag aside, grabbed my mask and put it on. We squared up again.

‘You're still at risk!' she said, and ‘
Aah
!' as her blade found my shoulder. ‘Two up and eight to go. Hundred pounds if you score more than one to my ten! Come on, husband, be a man, if you can be. Otherwise I shall go back to my nancy boys!'

Thereafter we fought in earnest. She scored twice more almost at once, pricks made with enormous ease and skill. Anger gripping my bowels, I tried the flèche, which I can only describe to the uninitiated as a swiff run forward, point directly at opponent, depending for its success largely on surprise. It was fatal against someone as good as Erica. She stop-hit it with ease and cut at my gloved hand as I recovered my position.

‘Aah!' she shouted again. ‘Five.'

We sparred around and I kicked my other bag out of the way. She scored again, a nasty little nick below the ribs – my own damned fault, of course; the padded jacket lay on the table. But pride and anger were too stiff.

For a change she decided to attack, and for her that was equally a mistake. A normal skilful opponent will riposte or parry and give ground in a normal way. I wasn't a normal opponent I knew what it was like to fight a man with a torch and a pair of fists and knock him down and bash him about the head: I knew the pleasure of it, I knew the thrill of it; and there was blood on my wrist and blood on my neck.

She came at me. God knows what she was attempting: I imagine a lunge followed by a
redoublement
, which is more or less a renewal of a preliminary lunge if the opponent fails to parry or riposte. I totally failed to do any such thing. I held my sword stiffly at her as she came forward, and her own sword jarred and slid off my mask. Mine sank in.

‘Aah!' she cried in triumph, but as it faded away it changed into a gurgle.

I tried to withdraw my épée. It came, but Erica came with it. Then the sword came free and was a crimson colour. Erica stood upright, probably staring at me, but I couldn't tell for the mask. I half raised my weapon again expecting some new attack on her part. Instead there was a terrible retching sound. She staggered and dropped her own sword, went down on one knee, then got up again, clinging to the table. She was coughing. Blood was dripping from the mask. She walked round the table like a blind woman looking for a way out.

‘Erica!' I said. ‘What the
hell
! …'

She tried to get the mask off. It might have been glued to her face. I dropped my own sword and went to help her. As I took the mask off, her face and head fell away from it towards the floor. There was a sound like sawing wood as she tried to breathe.

II

I don't know what I said to the Dial 999 girl or what she said to me but it seemed to take longer than it should.

When I'd banged the telephone down, I stumbled back into the kitchen. I'd fetched a pillow and tried to unbutton and unlace her jacket. She was lying quite still, her eyes half open – you could see their blueness – I'd pressed a flannel against the wound in her neck. There'd been a lot of blood to begin but now not so much. I spoke to her a couple of times but she didn't answer. I tried to feel her pulse and thought it was there, very faint, or that I was imagining it I wiped the blood off my own wrist as the front doorbell rang.

Well, they've been quick. Or maybe time, more time has passed than I think. I get to my feet – should have left the door ajar. Out into the passage and to the front door. Not the fire brigade, not the ambulance, not the police. Shona.

‘I'm sorry, David. I thought – my God, what is the matter? …'

I say: ‘I think I've just killed Erica.'

She comes in. Her face goes grey and patched. She takes me by the arm and pulls me round again. ‘
What
are you saying, David? What is this you are
talking
about?'

‘In the kitchen,' I say. ‘She's there in the kitchen. Just go and see.'

She hesitates, staring into my face, then goes off. When I get to the kitchen door she is kneeling beside my wife, lifting the flannel gently, putting practised fingers to her heart. In old Mother Russia, of course, she learned first aid. Like she'd shown that time at the motor accident.

‘Get a doctor!'

‘An ambulance. I dialled. I thought you were it. Is she …?'

‘I do not know. Oh, my God, what has happened?'

‘We were fencing.'

‘Fencing? In heaven's name, man! You told me she was at the Dorchester and you were leaving her! You sounded so upset I thought I would come round.'

I was feeling very sick. ‘She came back, didn't want me to leave – challenged me to fence. I told her, go to the devil. She wouldn't let me get out. So I fenced with her.'

‘Was she wearing her mask?'

‘Of course.'

‘Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God! What a thing! My poor Erica! My poor David!'

I begin to talk, suddenly the words spill out as if they're blood from a punctured vein. I say: ‘This has all happened before, hasn't it? I killed my father, much this way, half accident, half purpose; he didn't fall, bang his head on the stove, you know; I hit him with the iron bar; it was all hushed up; my mother and her boyfriend, Kenneth Kingsley, they made up this story to deceive the police. I was eleven. Now I'm thirty-seven. History has this habit of repeating itself. Criminal tendencies will out, that's how the police work and –'

Shona has got up and taken me by the shoulders. ‘Listen to me, David, listen. Are you
listening
? Can you attend to what I say?'

‘What? I tell you he didn't bang his head –'

‘David, whatever you
think
happened to your father,
this
could only have been an accident! This gear, this mask, this protective jacket should be proof against
anything
! Don't you understand? Even if you'd
wanted
to wound her you shouldn't have been
able
to. It was the purest accident. Don't tell me people do not rush at each other on the fencing
piste
! Sometimes they are like wild beasts, charging: you have seen enough to know the truth of that! So this was an accident. Understand, an
accident
. Do not be a fool and say you stabbed your wife deliberately or it will be misunderstood.
You should not have been able to do so. Can you hear me
?'

‘They're at the door now,' I say. ‘Let them in.'

III

I don't remember much about the next half-hour. I vomited for a while and was then in shock, as they call it. I suppose I was entitled to be a bit off centre, taking everything into account. A man, even one like me, doesn't knock off his wife every day of the week.

I was told afterwards the police came first in a Panda car. A detective constable and a policewoman. They went right in and the policewoman tried mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and then the policeman came out and a couple of minutes later the ambulance and a doctor arrived.

I was in the living-room by this time but I just couldn't concentrate to answer questions. It's a funny feeling, this policeman has come out of the kitchen and asks you something and your tongue bulks up and you as near as hell keel over again. You'd have thought good old David was better on his mental pins than that.

What's slightly worse is that you can quite clearly hear Shona talking. She's in a grey worsted frock, I remember, and a yellow scarf and her hair has grown longer again and she doesn't look well, and you wonder if she's been ill while you've been having it off with the beautiful Alison in Ullapool. But what she's saying is outrageous.
Outrageous
.

While people are walking in and out and a stretcher comes in and, after a bit, goes out again, she's saying to this detective constable and the policewoman that she has been
here all the time
. She's saying that she called to see the Abdens about ten, as Sir David has been away for some weeks and there is a company flotation looming in which Sir David is to play a central part. And she's saying she arrived just after Sir David returned from a dinner at the Dorchester and was followed by Lady Abden a few minutes later. And she's saying that Lady Abden – who is of course a distinguished international fencer – suggested that they should spar for a few minutes in the kitchen, which has been their habit and custom every evening since they married eighteen months ago. And Sir David was reluctant and wished to talk business with Mme Shona, but Lady Abden pressed him to take a turn with her as a joke.

And she is saying – the bitch Shona is saying – that she was a witness to the whole contest, which, like many others she has seen, was conducted in perfect propriety, with masks and protective clothing, and the accident, which is quite inexplicable to her, occurred in the course of this normal, conventional and totally orthodox bout. And she is saying that she thinks the point of the sword must have broken.