And so tell me, how how how was I supposed to look at him again? How was I supposed to raise him, to nurture him, to want him to live? And how, now this Ellie person has called me, am I supposed to feel anything other than terror at the thought of seeing that face again? The face that murdered my husband?
That’s all I can think. At least I wish it was all I could think. Because that, in itself, would be enough, wouldn’t it? But there’s more. There’s that guilt. The mother guilt, that you can’t get away from. The voice that says, ‘but he’s yours. And he was a child. He didn’t know what he was doing, you can’t blame him. You were self-indulgent.’ And that’s the voice I’ve been repressing for almost three decades. Not just that guilt, though. The other guilt. The guilt that says: if you hadn’t made Max fix the sink, that wouldn’t have happened. If you’d let Max stay in his lair, rehearsing or just relaxing for his important recording this wouldn’t have happened. If you hadn’t chosen that day to insist that he as the man did the DIY job that you could so easily do, to decide you were sick of being a sacrifice at the altar of his genius, then he would still be alive. And worse, had you not shouted after the hammer-blow, had you insisted that he go to see a doctor because everyone knows head injuries are tricky bastards, then again, still, he would be alive. Guilt fear and horror. Guilt fear and horror. My personal chord of destruction.
There’s a tug on my skirt from one of the schoolchildren. I hate her for being a child, for being hardly older than Guillaume was. For my knowledge that, given the right circumstances, the right equipment, she too could be a killer. Right now, she just wants to know about what notes she should play.
“Pas de dièses,” I mumble at her. I can only mumble, because this is the beginning of the disintegration. I have journeyed so far into my painful past that I have begun to hallucinate. My fevered mind has created the image of a grown-up Guillaume. And in my hallucinations, he is standing outside the window of the classroom, staring in.
-Will-
There she is. My murdering mother. Just like the photo Ellie showed me. A woman too well-groomed to show guilt. The dyed hair, painted lips, pinched-in waist. They are not the features of a woman destroyed by remembering what she has done. No. They are just the sort of self-indulgent traits I would expect of a woman who killed her husband and abandoned her son. Then apparently got engaged again. I know those features well, of course. From the moment I saw the pictures Ellie gave me, of the woman as she was back then, as she is now, and of the inside of our former home, all my memories have come back. My mother, that woman, standing in the kitchen, with those black and white tiles, holding a hammer, shouting, slapping me, leaning over my father, my Max, to examine her handiwork. My subconscious was trying to tell me the truth, but Ellie and her detective work unlocked the secrets, uncovered the memories that were always there.
And what new memories I will have by the end of today! The hammer smashing through her skull to her cortex. The moment she is still and cannot move any more, cannot do any more harm.
Look, now, at the harm they are letting her do to these children. If they knew, would they let her stand there with them? Address them, give them a perspective on life? Her warped, cruel perspective, that meant she killed so she could live alone. Maybe I should be grateful she didn’t take the hammer to me literally too. Only figuratively. And look, look at all those electronic keyboards that the children are sitting at. Curtailed, castrated pianos, their hammers removed, half their span cut out. How can a woman married to such a man as Max countenance that? How can she have the cheek to teach these small children to play, when she murdered the one true talent she had known? And when she gave away her own child? Never before will someone so deservedly have been brought to a halt.
But how do I do this? I have not given much thought to how I go in for the kill. The hammer and the smashing, yes, I remember that. The hammer reminds me of itself even now – it’s slipped lower in my jacket, and creates a pressure at the top of my groin. It will only come out for Sophie. But when to do it? How to get her alone? Or do I even need to get her alone? Why not just march into the schoolroom now, let the hammer do its work, then walk out again before anyone has realised why the children are screaming?
No. No, that is not right. The children. Think, then, of the lives that they will lead. The trauma counselling that they will need. The memories that they will repress. That will later resurface, and appal them. Lead them to kill. No. I do not want to gift to them my horrors.
And besides, we need a showdown. I need her to know, before she dies, what she has done. Before I force the hammer into her brain, I need to force Max and myself back in there. Even if she resists, I will push into her thoughts the lives that she shattered. Push, push, push, until just when she thinks her head is about to split – it will.
So alone it is. I must wait here, until she comes out. Perhaps move away from the window, lest I scare her. Then, when she emerges, I will follow her home. To the home that must hold Max’s piano, and more remnants of my past. Although that is not the main mission. Just a perk, if I can attain it. The ending of Sophie is the main prize. So should she choose to remain in the school, I will get her there, when everyone else has gone, when she doesn’t expect me. I look at my phone. 3pm. Can’t be more than about thirty minutes until the end of the school day. Good. My wait will not be long.
-Ellie-
So she calls the ambulance. She relents, and she calls, on Will’s office phone. She puts my mobile in her bag, where I can’t get at it. And finally, they are there, with their gas and air. The paramedics, from the hospital, the hospital I am already in. For a moment, we are almost a normal domestic scene – the daughter-in-law soothed and shushed by a doting grandmother-to-be, surrounded by a caring ambulance crew.
“Don’t worry, love,” they are telling me. “You’re in one of the top units in London.” And “Of all the places this could happen, this is the best. The birth centre is well-used to complications. You’re in safe hands.”
Their assurances as I – 1, 2, 3, breathe in – are welcome. But they assume that what they can see is all that’s going on. They assume that as they wheel me along, down, up, to their consultants, doctors, midwives, that all they are dealing with is the little thing of a premature birth. In Paris, I want to tell them, there is a premature death happening right now. Two deaths, three deaths, four deaths, more, if we count all who will be affected. I want to tell them: give me a phone. Because I’ve still got to tell Will. He needs me. I need him. Leo needs both of us. Maybe they can give me a phone. Gillian still has mine. I would be happy, it pressed into my hands, Will’s voice next to my ear, my voice in his. Then I could manage this.
But all they are interested in is pressing speculums, swabs, steroids into me. Telling me the amniotic sac has broken. I know, I know, I know these things. Is it not my body, my baby? They tell me the contractions should get slower now, but – there – I can feel them. Still fast. And little Leo, his heart rate is as speeding as mine. Beat, beat, beat we go. Will, leave Sophie! Come to us, not in a prison van, but in a bedazzlement of flowers and concern and awe!
They are telling me that if the contractions slow, they can monitor me for infection, for bleeding, keep me here, send me home, whichever I prefer. Gillian is hovering, feigning concern. But she does not understand what I need to do.
“Send her away,” I tell whichever person it is that is standing over me. “Send her away, I don’t want her here.”
“Poor thing’s delirious,” says Gillian. “I’d better stay.” And then she talks to me. “You’ll be quite alone, if I go,” she says. “Do you know what it is to bring a baby into the world alone?”
No,