The Curtains Weren’t Right

Now, I will admit, it was the disarray in the curtains that had upset me most. I am writing this for you so you understand, since you have asked so many questions, some difficult questions persist, festering like truth, like a piece of meat caught between your teeth. I will speak about it no more. I cannot speak about it, as you know.

I decided to see the walls as red. I imagine them in my mind. I cannot not see in this mask anyway. It is easier in the end to see what I want to see. And there is something calming and satisfying about a room like that, it envelopes me in a kind of satiated glow, filling me with a pleasant sense of well-being. Yes that’s what it is, well-being. A healthy pulse of the deepest red permeates this space, filtering into my vision and surrounding me whenever I sleep, when I can sleep. I feel calm in red, like a foetus: warm and wet and bloody. I cannot account for the sensation. It just is. I feel it now as I write each of these words for you.

I suppose I always was quite particular. Peculiar, some have said.

My mother used to tell me to stop fussing and just get on with it. So over time I have developed the ability to act very quickly, suddenly, in the heat of the moment. Some might think it spontaneity, a shift from the coldest, calm indifference to passionate and utterly fulfilling desire that rages inwardly until it is released. I get a sudden compulsion to perform, if you like. A need to strike with a thrusting into the heat of things, which I realise is actually quite natural. It’s only a matter of motivation.

I am better when things don’t change. I discovered that I had an overbearing impulse to move things back to their proper places after I had visitors. I do get visitors, you see, whatever others may think. Once, a doctor called at my house, a rare occasion. Then when he had gone, I’d saw that he’d picked up a photograph to comment on my likeness to a dead relative, and he placed the frame back down. But it was not replaced in the right spot. He’d put it back on the sideboard, yes, but the frame didn’t catch the light in the right way. At 11 o’clock in the morning, it would not cast the same shadow over the doily that my mother had placed upon the polished mahogany. It had sat there precisely just so for over fifty years. Or when another doctor had used the sink in the kitchen, he’d asked quite casually Is there somewhere I may wash my hands? He’d taken the soap to wash those liver-spotted hands, covered in downy hairs that he’d placed so awkwardly upon me. And then he’d drop the soap negligently at the wrong angle in the soap dish. I’d had to clean the bar of soap too, to remove the slightest trace of his touch. I have read so much about germs contaminating hospitals, I’m not foolish. I was aware what a doctor might bring into my house in his little black bag or crawling across his skin. I could feel it too! The slightest aberration or mere change in my pulse, a perturbation in me, as if something were crawling across me or flowing in my blood. It was that sense which ached annoyingly in my temple until I had washed away the slightest smudge of him.

A few years ago, an aunt on my mother’s side visited the local sanatorium to see her brother – he was ailing and soon passed over. She had been obliged to stay for one night at least and I had to put her in mother’s old room. I’d kept it shut up ever since her passing, but of course Aunt Lottie had said that would not concern her unduly.

After a late supper and some trifling conversation about a shared holiday when I was a small child – she recalled how someone had said, ‘Don’t put sand in the donkey’s ears.’ And so I had put sand in the donkey’s ears. Nothing happened! Except I then lost my ride on the donkey and had had to walk back along the beach sobbing. Lottie still chuckled about that. I didn’t.

‘You were always a contrary, Andrew,’ she said smiling.

We’d retired when the clock chimed ten. I felt a silent uneasiness, even with each of our footsteps on the stairs, as if each tread was somehow intensifying. My feet becoming heavier when I heard her as she opened the bedroom door.

‘In here, is it?’ she said quite calmly.

She sniffed the air uncomfortably, barely repressing her disgust at the musty smell. She had almost balked when entering. I apologized for the room’s stuffiness once more and took the atomizer from the dressing table. I sprayed the scent into the room. Femme de Rochas hung heavy in the air.

‘Is that your Mother’s scent?’ Aunt Lottie said.

‘Yes, it was,’ I said, ‘her favourite.’

Aunt Lottie sniffed the air. She stepped into the room and moved towards the bed.

‘Well, good night, Andrew,’ she said as I left her.

I sat in my room wondering at the wisdom of my offer. Why allow Aunt Lottie into that space? Then I had heard the soft folding of Lottie’s clothes as she disrobed. I inhaled, deeply, breathing in the scent I had sprayed, its rich fragrance filling my head. I closed my eyes and heard the soft sounds as if she were next door.

I admit that the presence in the next room was disturbing. I tried easing my breaths as the doctor had suggested. There was a soft, but delicate tension when I had imagined her silk underclothes falling to the floor. They pooled in a mess at her feet. Would she bend to retrieve that silk? I thought about the warmth of smooth fabric, of soft skin and how it cools. Her proximity was overwhelming. I could not breathe for a moment, wondering how my aunt’s senses filtered the essence of the room. Her eyes moved over the walls, her lungs pulled the air into her nose. She must be aware of its subtlest fragrance. Then I imagined the soft placing of her naked foot upon the carpet as she moved from the chair. I felt each depression in the mattress, the stirring of her body as she settled – its gentleness soothed me. Delightful.

But I could not sleep. The thought of her resting there with her eyes closed, or placing her fingers on mother’s things filled my mind: the comb and hand mirror on the dressing table, the jewelry box, the letter opener, even the crystal atomizer with its powerful scent. My mind was filled with the heaviest sensations. With just one or two puffs, the room is perfumed with the best and worst moments that I can ever imagine are recalled. Delightful.

For hours I sat in my own bedroom. I heard each breath, each movement of my aunt’s breast upon the mattress. I heard with precisely each hollow echo of her beating heart, its subtle, pulsing beat, pressing into that space where mother had lain.

It was the sound of that mattress every night, day after day as I got into that bed, the sound of my own weight bearing down on it, making it creak alarmingly, as if it were crying in alarm. And finally there was the recollection of her shaking so uncontrollably, the terrible fitful spasm, until slowly she faded and reached out in that panic before her final breath. Oh! I held that last breath until she had finally succumbed. I still hold it in my thoughts. It is forever heavy, like potential. I think about how she lay so still. I watched her all morning and she did not move again.

The next morning, the curtains weren’t right.

My aunt had drawn them back, disturbing the dust so the bright sun was streaming in and catching the motes; they seemed to move with a frenzy in the beams of yellow light. I felt a quickening of my pulse as they were swirling and mingling over the red carpet. But it was the curtains that most demanded my attention. They too had once been a deep, red, plush velvet, but now seemed the colour and texture of meat. And they had rested either side of the window, untouched for years now like hanging carcasses, unmoved and reassuring, except for the faded degradation of the years. The fresh vibrancy of red had become solemn, sombre like liver. Until that moment, the curtains had never distressed me. But she had thrown them back randomly, and there was now a crease or kink in one curtain, as if they seemed to frown a stern rebuke. It bruised me and my pulse had quickened.

After I had knocked gently and hearing only the slightest murmur of assent, I had entered into the dim mustiness once more. There she was, not in the bed, but sitting alert in the chair. I’d brought her a cup of tea, and as I stepped over the floor, and my feet pressed softly into  the quiet carpet, I imagined her foot upon that floor. I thought I heard the boards creaking with a slight disturbance. I placed the cup of tea down but it rattled annoyingly in the saucer, an infuriation, as if the spoon were rebuking me for being brought into this particular room. It had clearly felt alarmed at the presence of the knife, I suppose. Why is he here? It seemed to say and clattered a little. What is happening?

Why had I thought that hosting a relative was a decent thing to do? Mother would have expected it I suppose. She would have brought her sister an early morning drink herself, I am sure. But my aunt was already waiting, wanting it seemed to leave already. She was in her outdoor clothes as if she were keen to depart. It was as if she had not slept, as if she had paced the room all night unsettled just as I had been, moving over that floor, yet silenced by the carpet even whilst she pressed down upon those boards. Yet I knew they creaked and groaned as if they would cry out the slightest warning. Why had I not heard a single sound?

I looked at the bed. It was made, or hadn’t been slept in, as if she had not retired but had waited, dressed in those clothes all night?

‘Good morning,’ I said, ‘I trust you slept well.’

She sat silently in the chair, staring at me. I paused.

Then she said, ‘Thank you for the tea.’

‘Are you going so soon?’ I asked.

‘I must be off. I have things to do,’ she said.

‘I thought you might stay for a few days, that we might reminisce. Or visit the Ugolino Hall. I know you like gardens.’

It was then that she moved her face as if to smile, a half knowing look but almost suspicious. She paused, mid-thought, so that her expression became pained, or half-pitying.

‘I tried to open the window just now,’ she said, ‘to get some fresh air.’

‘It is sealed,’ I said.

‘There is something unhealthy in this room,’ she said and stood. The floorboards creaked with pain. ‘It is quite unbearable.’

She picked up the atomizer and sprayed the scent into the space over the carpet, each board sounded its grievance as she moved and a faint cloud of scent hung over us, the droplets drifting like possibilities.

I breathed it all in slowly.

I saw unexpectedly how the light fell on her face, bright upon her cheek so that it seemed younger. It was suddenly as if mother were there once more. I was reminded once more of her final look, just as she had been when she’d told me she was leaving.

The dust motes stirred as my aunt turned her back on me too. They seemed to make an angry noise, rising into the sunlight that was no longer golden but burning with a red light.

Now, I truly admit, it was the disarray in the curtains that had upset me most. Not the dust. If only she had let the curtains be…

Afterwards, it had taken me over fifteen minutes to rearrange the evenness of the drapes so each fold of fabric was equidistant and the light falling upon the bedroom floor made the most precise shape as it fell across my aunt’s body. It framed her face with such a pleasing golden glow. She looked exactly as my mother had. I am sure that she was at peace then. She would not disturb me nor unsettle anything again. Her eyes had flickered a little to start with, as if she knew what was happening. I find that disturbing when the eyes move intermittently. Her heartbeat settled quickly to stillness, though, ebbing away easing the torment, it was a release for her. I could not hear it in the end, at least. I was satisfied too in the slow easing of that vibrant red gush after I’d first struck, it pulsed to a slow, dark pool. I had spilled it too casually like the tea. Lottie had knocked that carelessly to the floor, shattering the china. That can’t be helped, I had thought as her eye seemed to settle on the spillage. Accidents will happen.

I realise it was a mistake to host her, there is a very reliable inn a few miles from the sanatorium that she could have used. Her visit had ended up creating so much work for me. I buried the remains with mother; there was plenty of space beneath the boards; the joists in these old houses are wide and deep. And bones can be stacked quite neatly out of the way.

It had taken a whole week to clean the place of the last trace of her, wiping away the smear of her presence. I do like to keep things clean as much as possible, like mopping up gravy with a fine crust of bread. I always have a clean plate.

I sealed the room once more and only need the atomizer occasionally.

Even then, after I had got rid of the most obvious signs of her disturbance, I discovered she had left her boots by the back door. They were fairly new and barely worn and I thought it a needless exertion to go lifting floorboards once more, so I offered them to a neighbour, leaving them three streets away on the door step. I didn’t want any gratitude or attention coming to me so I’d gone out late in the night, a spirit of benevolence, quite charitable. The fluttering of my breath as I stepped between the shadows of the streetlamps caused me only slight concern that I might be seen. But when a cat walked up to me, it had purred loudly and rubbed its foul body against my legs a few times before I had even seen what it was. I had kicked it away violently so that I could proceed unhindered.

At home, it had taken me a long time to check each leg of my trousers for the least sign of an unwanted hair from such a beast. Foul creature! I have never liked animals. The idea of a pet seems utterly ridiculous to me. Why anyone would eat an animal is anathema!

I wondered afterwards what had led them so quickly to my door. Did someone see me kick the cat? Was it the boots? I had plenty of time to ponder this before the trial.

In court they said Charlotte Spencer’s name was quite clearly visible inside the boots. And I had laughed out loud. Who on earth puts their name in their boots? They’d traced her from her last known sighting at the hospital, via the boots to my door.

I remember them knocking when I was salting the meat, you have to salt the meat to preserve it, you know. There were pink smears still on my hand as I opened the door. I’d had little time, no time really. And I still wonder what happened to all the meat in the end.

Who ate it?

When they closed the door here and I heard the finality of that bolt finding its home, it went peacefully quiet. And I curled up in a ball on the ground and wept at the thought of my final release. They had bound me of course, lest I do some damage before the last day. It was as if someone was hugging me, holding me tight.

I feel like a child in swaddling clothes, wrapped tight. Mothered, I am once more. And I can’t move my arms. I am safe.

But I miss the harsh rebukes too. So when I run into that wall in a fury, I feel the soft wall catch me and it is frustrating. I shout, ‘Please!’ again and again, begging for the hard edge of judgment to release me from this maddening frenzy.

Silence is a dreadful thing. Like the first loss of God.

There is no harsh rebuke, no sudden slap, so I try again and again. Each time I seem to fall to the floor exhausted. The room’s safety holds me. I try to scream but they have placed something over me. I am muffled. But I still have my teeth. And so it is at last, I find release. I feel them cut, deep into the only muscle that I have left, the sweet taste of my tongue. Warm and wet and bloody. I chew and swallowed one last meal. Peace comes. I cannot account for the sensation. It just is.