Ruth Rendell - The Bridesmaid

“I knew you’d come. I felt it. I thought, Philip will come to me, he didn’t mean what he said, he couldn’t mean it . Isn’t it funny? I wasn’t even afraid for more than a moment. I knew my love would be too strong for yours to stop.”

And it was, he thought, it was. It had returned in a cascade, like the rain. The pity and the tenderness burned him, affecting the inside of his body with a painful sensation. There were tears at the back of his eyes. He put his arms round her and held her, and she crushed herself against him as if she were trying to push her body inside his.

This time she was the first to move out of their embrace. She stepped back and looked at him very sweetly, her head a little on one side. He was aware, incongruously, that while holding her, while renewing his love for her, he had ceased to smell the smell. It returned now on a thick hot wave. The smell was one he associated with flies.

She put out her hand and took his and said, “Philip, my darling, you said you’d help me with something I have to do. Well, we have to do. It’s something that has to be done before we can contemplate living up here actually.” She smiled. It was as mad a smile as he could ever imagine seeing on a woman’s face, demonic and empty and split off from real things. “I would have done it before, I know I ought to have done it before, but I’m not really physically strong enough to do things like that on my own.”

He had no thoughts. He could only stare and feel pain and feel her hand, small and hot, in his. There were all sorts of things he had to say, terrible things to tell her. All he could do was begin stupidly, “You said Jacopo—”

“They’re away till tomorrow. Anyway, it wouldn’t do to let them know. We have to get this done before they come back, Philip.”

A butcher’s shop left open and unattended for several long hot days, he thought. A shop full of rotting meat after everyone had died of the bomb or radiation sickness. She opened the cupboard door. He saw a kind of face. Like Flora’s, gleaming without life in the recesses of his own cupboard, but not like that, not like that at all. Something that had once been a girl and young, propped against the bare wall and still clothed in green velvet.

He made a sound of horror. He put both hands over his mouth. It seemed as if the whole inside of him rose up into his mouth and swelled there. The floor moved. He wasn’t going to faint, but he wasn’t going to remain standing up, either. His hands out like someone seeking water to swim in, he lowered himself till he crouched on the grey blanket pallet.

She hadn’t noticed, it hadn’t touched her. She was looking into the cupboard now as if what it contained was no more than a cumbersome or awkwardly shaped piece of furniture that somehow must be moved and disposed of. Apart from sight perhaps, her senses were shut off. He saw her reach into the cupboard and pick up from the floor a kitchen knife, its blade and handle blackened with old blood. She lied only about the little things, the minor details….

“You’ve got your car, haven’t you, Philip? I thought we could carry it down on that thing you’re sitting on and put it in my room till it gets dark and then we could—”

He screamed at her, “Shut up, for Christ’s sake, stop!”

She turned slowly, she turned mad, pale, watery eyes on him. “What’s the matter?”

They were the biggest things he had ever done, getting up off the floor, standing up, kicking that cupboard door shut. He put his arms round Senta and manhandled her out of that room. This was the next door to be shut. His nostrils, the entire inside of his head it seemed, his brain, were painted with that smell. There weren’t enough doors in the world to shut it out. He dragged her to the top of the stairs, pulled her with him halfway down the stairs until they sprawled together on the treads. He held her shoulders, made a cage for her face with his hands. Her face was forced up against his, their mouths inches apart.

“Listen to me, Senta. I’ve given you away to the police. I didn’t mean to but I have. They’ll come here, they’ll be here soon.”

Her lips parted, her eyes opened very wide. He was prepared for her to attack him with fists and teeth, but she was still and limp, as if suspended from his hands.

“I’ll get you away,” he said. “I’ll try to.” He hadn’t meant to say this. “That’s what we’ll use the car for. I’ll get you away somewhere.”

“I don’t want to go away,” she said. “Where would I go? I don’t want to be anywhere without you.”

She got up and he got up and they went downstairs. There was a new smell here, the old smell of sourness and mould. He thought, it is hours and hours since I spoke to Morris. She pushed open the door to the basement room. The candle had burnt itself out in a pool of wax. He folded back the shutters and saw that the rain had stopped. Water was running down the area wall and splashing against the kerb as cars passed. He turned back to her. At once he could see that only one thing concerned her, one thing only was important to her.

“You do still love me, Philip?”

It might be a lie. He no longer knew. “Yes,” he said.

“You won’t leave me?”

“I won’t leave you, Senta.”

He crouched on the bed beside her and turned his face away from its reflection in the mirror, its crumpled, frightened, damaged image. She crept across the mattress to him and he took her in his arms. She nestled up close to him and put her lips against his skin, and he held her tight. He could hear cars going through the water up there, and he heard one stop outside. The things we think of, he thought, the things we remember at terrible times. When he stole the statue, he had thought, They wouldn’t send a police car out for something like that.

But they would for this. They would for this.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

copyright © 1989 by Ruth Rendell

cover design by Jaya Miceli

ISBN: 978-1-4532-1099-4

This edition published in 2010 by Open Road Integrated Media

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New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com