James Smythe - The Machine

We have to go, Vic says.

We can’t, she tells him. She tells him to get into the Machine’s room and to wait there: to sit on the bed and not touch anything, and to trust her. He does, or says that he does. Beth flicks the lights off and peers through the curtain down at the bollards, as the policemen climb out of their cars; and there, with them, is Laura. She clutches a rag to her head, something large and bulbous, and she steadies herself on the car door as she climbs out, then waits there a while. It’s still dark: only just heading towards light. Nothing like as hot as it will be. Nothing even close yet.

Beth ducks down, hiding, because she thinks that the best way to ride this out will be to sit inside and wait until they leave. She doesn’t know how this works, not really – only what she’s learned from television – but they can’t enter her flat, she knows that, not this quickly. So they’ll wait, and when the police are gone they’ll make their move. They’ll get onto a ferry and get off the island. She worries then that the police will be waiting for them at the dock, but that’s a problem for later. Now: they’re here, down below, because Laura was assaulted, and because she’ll have told them that Vic killed that boy. Beth tries to remember his name – because she wants to give him that much, rather than thinking of him as something so vague – but she can’t. She can remember the way that he looked at her, certainly; and the menace in his loping, drawn-out walk; and the scar that he had, across his neck; and she wonders again what it was from, and then she remembers his dead mother – car crash? – and thinks that it must be a scar from that, a remnant. That makes her feel sorry for him: carrying it around like that. Reminded, every time he rubs it. Always there but never in view, and he can’t see it, but he can’t forget it either.

Beth watches them come into the estate proper, and then to the stairs, and then they’re out of view – at the blind corner, in the stairwell, and then filing along the balcony. She can hear the crackle of their radios, and she can hear them asking Laura if she’s all right. Beth crouches low and scuttles to the back room, to the Machine’s room, and she stands in the doorway with all the lights off, knowing that they won’t be able to see her.

Stay quiet, she says to Vic. He’s still sitting on the bed.

The police knock on the door, not touching the bell, just hammering straightaway: the base of a fist making the whole thing thud.

Mrs McAdams, they say. She hears it, muffled through the door, and she looks at Vic. She looks at the Machine.

Don’t make a noise, she says.

The thudding comes again, and she sees the shape of one of them at the window. It’s getting lighter outside: not quite dawn yet, but not far off. She sees him bend down, and she stays stock still, in that darkness. Feeling safe enough.

Mrs McAdams, the policeman says again.

Beth, Laura says. We know you’re in there.

Please go away, Beth whispers. Because she needs to get out of here, and she needs to take Vic somewhere else, and start this again: working with him, keeping whatever’s inside him under control.

The policeman hammers again, and then the letterbox flap lifts and eyes peer through.

Nothing, he says. No lights, no movement. They might have gone already.

She won’t have gone, Laura says. Where would she go?

We can’t get a warrant until later this morning, but we’ve got people watching all the ways off the island. They’ll find her. (Beth strokes her head: her new haircut might be enough, she hopes, when she reaches the docks.) The policemen start to walk away – Beth watches their silhouettes go past the window – but Laura isn’t with them.

I’m going to wait for her, Laura says.

You really should come with us, they tell her. Stern but humouring.

I’m not going anywhere, she says, and then the door is hammered again, but this time it’s Laura’s knock, Laura’s fist. Beth! she shouts. Beth, I know you’re in there! Her voice becomes clearer as she speaks: speaking through the pain that she must still be experiencing. This must matter to her. We only want to talk to you, Beth. Nothing more.

I don’t know what you think I want, Beth, but I so want to believe you about everything. I only want to help you, because you’re my friend. Even after all of this – after you hurt me, Beth, and threatened me with that thing, I still want to help you. Doesn’t that tell you how much this means to me? She knocks again: softly, this time, with her knuckles, not the flat of her fist. The police are nowhere to be seen. And I thought that we connected, didn’t we? And you told me all of your secrets, and I was there for you. I could have helped you, Beth: I could have guided you. Beth hears the turning of an engine: must be the police. They’re nearly alone with Laura. Vic’s body tenses, because he could finish this, she knows, but that would seal everything. That’s a decision that she could never allow. She could do so, as easily as she could wipe Vic’s past, but neither is going to happen. Laura taps the glass again. Please, Beth. I can help you. Let me?

We’re in this together, Vic says. Beth worries that he says it too loudly, but Laura doesn’t hear him.

I know, Beth whispers in reply. She walks into the near-light coming through the windows, and towards the front door. She gets as close as she dares – the sound of the engines now long gone – and she waits there. She doesn’t know what she’s waiting for, exactly. For something.

Beth, please. God can save you, Beth.

But I made him, she says. Laura shuffles, loud enough to be heard. You told me that it was a sin, Laura. And you want to be my friend?

Where is he, Beth?

Please, Laura. Just leave us alone. I’m sorry about your head, but—

Now we have matching wounds, she says.

Yes. Beth touches her bruised head. She has that scar, and so will Laura, and so does Vic. Vic had it first: everything else is mere imitation.

So much in common, I told you. Beth can hear Laura’s smile through the door. It’s not too late, Laura says.

Come on, Beth says. We both know that’s not true.

Where is he really?

You’ll tell the police, Laura. You brought them here.

And now they’ve gone, Laura says, but Beth instantly knows that she’s lying: her voice is too persuasive, almost patronizing. Don’t worry, it says: trust me. Please Beth! Laura begs. You’re all alone in there, don’t you see that? You’re sick. I’m only here to help you! The police are only here to help you! Beth backs away from the door. She speaks to Vic.

They’re outside, she says. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. Vic walks up next to her and reaches out his arms, and he holds her; and she thinks that he could smother her and she might be happy for that to happen, somehow. What did I erase from myself? she asks him, and he smiles at her – she can see the corners of his mouth from where she is, wrapped up in his arms – and he replies, because he’s figured it out before she has.

Who says you erased anything? Who says that you didn’t put something else in?

She knows that there isn’t long, so she quickly bolts the door and drags the table over from the kitchen area to put against it, together with some chairs. She asks Vic to help her move the sofa. This flat is her bastion. Fitting, somehow: years of being stuck in it, and now she accepts that this will be where it ends for her.

What should I do? Vic asks.

I don’t know, she says. Make sure that they’re kept out. Tell me what you can see.

He nods. Yes ma’am, he says. His army voice. She loved – still loves – that voice. She takes the tools from the kitchen drawer and she lies them on the bed in front of the Machine.