Дональд Джеймс - The House of Eros

Nan Luc twisted her body to look down at him. He was groaning, barely conscious. The back of his head, where the black hair thinned across the skull, was at her mercy. Panic thoughts surged through her mind. One more blow, she knew, could kill him, could deliver her from this horror. Trembling madly she lifted the bottle, hesitated, lifted it again. One more blow to kill a man. To kill a man like Quatch.

Exhaustion sapped her resolve, her hatred. Her arm fell. She watched Quatch roll clumsily away from her as her aching hand released the bottle.

At the end of the bed he crouched, his hand to the side of his head. Breath soughed from his rounded mouth, sour enough to reach her across the foot or two that separated their faces. Pushing himself to his feet he stumbled to a chair and lowered himself into it to sit, his small, glittering eyes never leaving her.

He beat her. Rested, and beat her again. Tore off the last shreds of her clothes and beat her again.

Half blind with pain she lay crouched on the bed in a foetal position until the blows finally stopped. She had begged him and pleaded with him and screamed in pain. Now she lay back looking up at him and their eyes locked together. The thought that he might kill her hung between them.

He spoke and the words meant nothing to her as she faded in and out of the most compelling need to escape into sleep. Hours or minutes fused. Minutes or hours. Sometime, as her eyes opened, she was aware that he was crouched over her, pushing her legs apart, grunting like an animal.

His face was just inches away, sweat pouring from his forehead, the breath hissing through his broken teeth, the eyes red with madness. Somewhere in the room she could hear her own voice, pleading…

He was reaching for something now, something behind her head, fumbling past her shoulder as he thrashed from side to side on her body. When his hand rose it rose with the glint of steel. In the soft lighting from the lamps, the blade glowed yellow.

Paralysed, as he pushed inside her, she watched the angled wrist and the yellow glowing blade. Then his exultant scream filled her consciousness, and she saw, without understanding, the spurt of blood and the bloody hand stabbing and stabbing the blade into his own neck.

Through the night, from every moment’s sleep she woke in terror as blood dripped and burbled from his body across her shoulders and face. Through the night she pushed and struggled to roll him off her, his inert weight a deathlock, an embrace she fought to break; until at last his body rolled from her, thudding to the floor on the far side of the bed.

Standing now, straining on the chain attached to her wrist she could see no more than his crooked arm and bloodied hand. Her legs ached and trembled. She looked at the mound of sheeting and twisted blankets on the bed, soaked and stained black-red to almost pink. She wondered how two bodies could have so much blood.

On the floor beside the bed, the bamboo cane lay. With it she reached out to where Quatch’s jacket was draped across a chair. Hooking the coat through the air until it fell on the bed, she searched the pockets until she found a slim folded wallet of keys. Awkwardly she began to try them on the lock of the metal cuff that clasped her wrist. At the third or fourth key the lever turned and the cuff fell away.

Without thinking, almost as if it were now the most important thing in her life she went to the desk in the salon. Using the wallet of keys she opened the centre drawer. The passport lay on top of a pile of papers. For this soft pale cover with its red cross she had passed the night.

She found she alternated between surges of almost manic energy and almost complete exhaustion. Each time she forced herself to move she became aware of a dry sobbing deep in her chest, far from tears. Again the image in the mirror shocked her. She knew that unless she washed off his blood, the blood of both of them, she was in danger of complete collapse. The thought steadied her. She walked carefully, one foot placed in front of the other, into the bathroom.

She had showered the blood from her and wrapped herself in a thick bath towel when the knock came at the door. She looked at herself slowly in the long mirror as her grandmother’s voice called her from outside. She looked, she thought, almost unharmed by the violence of the night. Most of the stripes from the cane were now covered by the towel. Her face was pale and the jaw from some angles, swollen. Her hands too were lacerated as she had tried to defend herself from the cane.

She felt a century older. For a few moments she stood utterly still, drawing deep breaths while the voice of Bernadette pleaded outside. Then she walked slowly to the door and opened it.

Her grandmother’s face smiled up at her eagerly. ‘Did you get it?’

Nan Luc’s hand rose to hit her, but she had no strength to spare. She opened wider the door and gestured to where she had left the passport. With a squeal of pleasure Bernadette crossed the room and snatched it up. Pressing it to her lips, she slid it into the waistband of her black peasant dress and turned to her granddaughter. ‘He’s not still here, is he?’ she said, dropping her voice.

Nan gestured to the open bedroom door. ‘No need to whisper. He can’t hear you,’ she said.

‘He’s gone? Good. Monsieur Quatch can keep ahead of any police force.’

She stopped. Then came forward and laid her hand on Nan’s arm. ‘Was it perhaps not too bad, cherie?’

‘Not too bad,’ Nan Luc said, throwing off her grandmother’s hand.

Bernadette’s excitement blinded her to the disgust in Nan’s gesture. ‘I know he’s not an… easy man,’ she smiled brightly. ‘No, not an easy man. Your cheek’s a little swollen I see.’ Nan Luc turned away. ‘What you did for me last night, cherie, will never be forgotten. However far away…’

‘Stop,’ Nan Luc screamed. ‘Stop, for God’s sake.’

‘But we’re family. We’ve proved to each other that we’re family again. Listen, I must get out of these peasant clothes. I must get dressed and made up. Important figures in the International Red Cross do not wear clothes like this.’ She walked into the bedroom, stopped in shock. Then she went in, closing the door behind her.

Nan Luc turned and walked out into the hallway. In the kitchen she heated a pot and made tea. Her mind seemed to be circling the small core of sanity left to her. She leaned back against the stove and drank the tea. Behind her closed eyes she saw rushing, spurting blood. Only when she jerked open her eyes did she realise Bernadette was in the room beside her. She had chosen a black suit with velvet collar, high heels, and a pale trenchcoat which she wore round her shoulders.

‘You have my word, cherie,’ she said. ‘He had talked about it often, but I swear I never believed it was more than a flight of fancy. He’s still breathing. Just. I’ll telephone to the clinic from the airport.’ She looked into Nan Luc’s glazed eyes. ‘The edge of the grave,’ she said. ‘He had always boasted that he would have the company of a beautiful woman to the very edge of the grave.’

Nan Luc walked ahead of her from the kitchen. ‘Find me some clothes,’ she said.

Her grandmother followed her. ‘Upstairs,’ she said, ‘you have the choice of my whole wardrobe. I must leave you, cherie, for my new life.’

‘Not yet.’ Nan’s voice was unlike any woman’s voice Bernadette had heard before. It had a new steely quality that made Bernadette turn her head sharply. ‘We have some unfinished business.’

‘I have no time to talk,’ Bernadette said.

‘You must find time,’ Nan said. ‘You are not leaving this apartment until we have talked.’