Gordon Reece - Mice

I gotta tie you up. . That’s why I brought the rope.

‘Austria — Hungary’s ultimatum to Serbia was so harsh it was nigh on impossible to comply with, although the Serbs did their very best — enough to satisfy Kaiser Wilhelm that the cause of war had evaporated. .’

I shouldn’t have had them eggs. Them eggs was off.

‘There is evidence to suggest that Berchtold used a fabricated report of Serbian aggression on the Danube to force the emperor to sign the declaration of war. .’

I know what I want, lady! I know what I want!

‘Britain’s reason for going to war was Germany’s violation of Belgian neutrality, but Britain itself had plans to send troops into Belgium should that prove necessary. A truly neutral Belgium would have ruined Britain’s plans to starve Germany via a naval blockade. .’

He’s going to kill us, Mum. I know it for sure.

‘If France announced neutrality, Germany was going to ask for the fortresses of Verdun and Toul. .’

Fancy a snog?

‘France was to be forced into war whether she liked it or not. .’

Mum, this rope’s beginning to give. I think I can get my hands free. .

When we’d finished the origins of the First World War and Roger had outlined the revision essay he wanted me to write ( The alliance system made the Great War inevitable. Discuss ), we moved on to an English comprehension exercise: a long passage from Moby Dick entitled ‘Stubb kills a whale’ that had been set for the exam the previous year.

As usual, I had half an hour to answer the ten questions on my own and then we’d work through the answers together.

I’d never read Moby Dick and I found the passage almost incomprehensible, full of nautical words I didn’t know and strange names — Queequeg, Pequod, Daggoo, Tashtego. The questions on the text ( What literary role does Stubb’s pipe play in this passage? ) seemed much harder than usual. Whole sentences seemed to make no sense to me at all. Waves of tiredness washed over me and I had to struggle to keep my eyelids from closing. I felt unbearably hot, the scarf around my neck suffocating, my mouth dry. I found it impossible to concentrate on the page of black ants that marched and swirled and span before my eyes.

I dimly understood that a crew of sailors in a rowing boat led by a man called Stubb were hunting down a whale, and that it was Stubb who actually killed the whale with his harpoon, but my ability to grasp the fine details was shattered every few minutes by powerful flashbacks triggered by the text. When Stubb sent his ‘crooked lance’ into the whale ‘again and again’ I saw myself chasing the burglar round and round the kitchen table, stabbing him over and over. ( We’re playing musical chairs now! We’re playing musical chairs now! ) When ‘the red tide poured from all sides’ of the dying whale, I saw that enormous lake of blood that had come trickling across the terracotta tiles towards me where I’d sat hunched and exhausted against the washing machine. When the whale sent up ‘gush after gush of clotted red gore’ from its spout hole, I saw the red jet that had spewed out of the burglar’s neck when I’d nicked it with the tip of the knife. When Stubb ‘stood thoughtfully eyeing the vast corpse he had made’, I remembered that stillness, that silence in the kitchen after Mum’s crushing blow, when the fact, the unbelievable fact that we’d killed someone, slowly began to sink in.

I became aware of Roger’s voice, far, far away, barely audible. He was saying something for the second or third time.

‘Sorry — did you say something?’ I asked.

‘You are out of it, aren’t you?’ He laughed. ‘I was saying you’ve run out of time. It’s over.’

It’s over. Is that what the police would say if they came to the house today? You’ve run out of time . . I finished the word I was writing and put my pen down. I’d only answered half the questions.

‘Before we go through this,’ Roger said, ‘don’t you think we should have a little tea break? We’ve normally had two or three cups by now. .’

I hadn’t offered him any tea because he had a habit of following me into the kitchen and chatting while the kettle boiled, and I was mindful of Mum’s warning: keep people out of the kitchen whatever you do .

‘I suppose because it’s your birthday you want me to make it, is that right?’ Roger joked. ‘Well, as it’s your special day — just this once—’ And he started to get up.

‘ No! ’ I cried, jumping to my feet. ‘I’ll do it, Roger. I just forgot, that’s all. Like I said, I had way too much wine yesterday. I’m still asleep, really.’

Roger sat back down, but as I went to pass behind him on my way to the kitchen, he leaned back in his chair and blocked my way.

‘Is there any chance of a slice of your mum’s lemon cake while you’re out there, Shelley? I’m absolutely starving.’

‘Yes, of course.’ I smiled, and grinning cheekily, he let me pass. I felt sure he was going to follow me, and I desperately tried to think of some way to keep him in the dining room.

‘Do you want to start looking through my answers now?’ I said. ‘I didn’t get very far, I’m afraid.’

‘Sure,’ Roger said, reaching for my notebook. ‘Sure.’

The smile vanished from my face as soon as I was on my own in the kitchen. I had to hurry. I knew he’d follow me in if I wasn’t quick. I got the lemon cake out of the cake tin and dropped it on the table. I quickly filled the kettle, put two teabags in the pot, and snatched a plate from the cupboard. I took a fork from the cutlery drawer and then looked for a knife to cut the wretched lemon cake. I found the long sharp knife with the black plastic handle. As soon as I held it in my hand the flashbacks started again. Thumping the knife into the gap between his shoulder blades. Slashing at him as he ran bent double towards the house. Nicking the side of his neck as I pursued him around the kitchen. ‘We’re playing musical chairs now! We’re playing musical chairs now!’

‘You’re finding it very difficult, aren’t you, Shelley?’ said a voice behind me.

I spun around, the knife in my hand.

Roger was in the kitchen, walking nonchalantly towards the back door.

What did he mean? What was I finding difficult? Did he mean pretending that nothing had happened in the house last night? Did he mean covering up the murder of the burglar?

‘It’s not easy,’ he said, ‘especially when there’s so much blood.’

He knew! He knew! Somehow Roger knew!

I gripped the knife tightly in my hand, unsure what I should do next. Should I stab him? Was that what Mum would have wanted me to do?

‘It was a savage business, wasn’t it?’

‘What are you talking about?’ I croaked hoarsely, barely able to give the words enough weight to reach him.

Roger looked surprised. ‘The passage — the passage from Moby Dick . It’s not only difficult technically, but also emotionally. Whaling was a savage, bloody business in those days. I’m surprised they set it for the exam last year. It upset a lot of students, there were lots of complaints. Why, what did you think I meant?’

I took the cake out of its greaseproof paper and tried to cut it with a trembling hand. My nerves were raw and jangling. I had a strange feeling in my head: a whirling vertigo, a craziness, and the sickening sensation that I was no longer in control of my own actions. I quite simply didn’t know what I was going to do next, what I was capable of doing next. I had to get him out of the kitchen! This was the epicentre. This was where the killing had taken place. This was where all the blood had been. The knife wouldn’t stop shaking, and I had to use two hands to steady it.