‘Stella!’
‘Hold on, Frankie, hold on.’ His eyes have closed again. I lean forward, kiss him on his forehead. ‘Hold on.’
Marco is waiting at the house, standing in the doorway. He is very pale, his eyes hooded pools of ink. He is singing, I can hear it more clearly as I get closer. The theme tune to Marigold!, the one I’ve always hated.
‘There’s Bonnie and there’s Eddie and there’s Mum and Mikey too,
Daddy, Lucy, Frisky, we’ll never forget you!
But who is coming out to play to say how do you do?
It’s little Katie Marigold, with eyes of sparkling blue!’
I’m standing in front of him and now he reaches for me, pulls me towards him. I am limp, in shock. Real love is glacial, hard and cold. It is not this love, this meteorite, this fiery comet, obliterating. Marco has scarred me, the force of his impact. I am shaken by it.
‘Frankie’s hurt.’
‘He’s dying,’ he tells me flatly. ‘I saw him hit the dashboard. Made a sound like you wouldn’t believe. Still, when you’re that fat, perhaps it’s like wearing an airbag.’ He smirks at me. ‘I thought you wanted to see what was in the loft. Isn’t that why you called Frankie to come and visit you with his enormous tool?’ He laughs at his own innuendo. ‘Well, Stella? You must have figured it out by now.’
‘I don’t kn—’
‘Oh, come on, honey. Come on, baby girl. You were never that great an actress. In 1989 Smash Hits described you as wooden as a plank in a wig. Did you know that?’
‘No.’ I’m telling the truth. My mother kept all the bad press away from me, every negative review, every insult. I can see why now, because it still stings.
‘You know what I did?’ Marco has guided me into the house, closing the door softly on the mist, on Frankie. ‘I bought every single issue of that magazine from eleven different newsagents, and I burned them all in the garden.’
He is looking at me, deadly serious. I look down at what he is holding. It is the doorstop, the cast-iron one which props open the back door. There is something stuck to it. Is it hair? Is it hair?
‘Every single one. No one says that about Katie Marigold. Not about my girl.’
‘We need to call an ambulance, Marco. For Frankie. He could die.’
‘Could he? Yes, I suppose he could. Get one for Carmel too.’ Marco doesn’t move. ‘Light me a cigarette, would you?’
Wait.
‘What do you mean, Carmel too?’
He doesn’t answer, and I run towards the doorway, calling her name. My legs feel like rotten wood, as though they are going to splinter and give way under me.
‘Carmel!’
I can see blood. That is the first thing. Spatters of it, coin-sized, leading from the kitchen to the sitting room. A smear of blood on the doorpost there, jewel-red. Something flips in my stomach. I walk slowly, but I don’t say her name again. She is lying on the floor of the sitting room, parallel to the couch, as if she had crawled the last few feet and not quite made it. I swallow the gorge which is rising in me. She is face down, surrounded by a halo of blood so glossy I can see the reflection of the window in it. I approach her, put my hand on her back. There is no rise and fall of breath. One of her shoes hangs off her feet, exposing a heel, her dainty toes. I want to cry.
‘Don’t turn her over.’
It’s Marco in the doorway. I try to inhale but my chest is painful and tight. Her hand is curled above her head. He has struck her a violent blow, but she can’t be dead, I tell myself. But look. Look at all that blood.
‘Don’t, honey. You don’t want to see that.’
‘What did you do to her?’
‘Knocked a little sense into her. Come away. Come on. It’s for your own good.’
‘You— You’ve killed her.’
‘I was defending you.’
I look up at him, confused. He is holding out his hand to pull me up. I don’t know what to do, should I take it? I don’t know. I look down at Carmel again. She can’t be really dead, can she? Not really, really. But I’ve never seen so much blood and still it is growing as some vital artery pumps out the last of her. I close my eyes and see stars and then Marco is pulling me up onto my feet.
‘Can you walk?’
‘You killed her.’
‘She was trying to attack me. It was self-defence.’
I look at him aghast as he walks to the window, bending down to look outside. We are back in the dining room now, and I have to lean on the mantelpiece for support.
‘Why was Frankie in the car with you?’
‘Bumped into him turning into the lane, right at the top. Looked like he’d been running to get here, like he was about to have a heart attack. Fat men shouldn’t run. I told him that. It’s dangerous, I said. You want to know something funny? He didn’t want to get into the car. Kept walking, head down. “Do you want a lift, Frankie? Do you want to get in here with me?” Just shook his head. Then I saw what he was holding.’
‘What?’
‘A hammer.’
Marco puts the doorstopper down gently on the polished surface of the table.
‘I had a bad feeling, Stella. Like he meant to hurt you. After everything you said about him, and then here he is, in thick fog, alone, with a weapon, heading to the cottage. I couldn’t let that happen. So I told him to get into the car, that I needed him to help me – to help you. Told him you’d finally lost the plot, that I was worried about you. That convinced him.’
‘You’ve as good as killed him. Both of them.’
‘Accidents happen, honey. In the mist, on twisting lanes, driving too fast. Recipe for disaster.’
My stomach knots itself slickly. I have to get to my phone. It is on the table. I can see it from where I’m standing. If I am careful I might be able to slide it into my pocket or up my sleeve without him noticing. Marco looks at me carefully, his mouth twitching in a barely concealed smile. That’s the thing about Marco. He always could read me.
‘It’s just us now. As it should be.’
He walks to the table, picks up my phone and slides it into his coat pocket. When he smiles at me my skin crawls.
‘Tell you what, Stella, here’s what we’ll do. I’ll take you up to the loft, because I’m the only one with the key and your pal Frankie would’ve taken off his fingers trying to break through that padlock – and if you’re a good girl – if you behave – you can make a call, get a doctor or whatever. Okay?’
He’s lying, of course. He has no intention of giving me my phone back or letting me call an ambulance. I feel like screaming but instead I just say okay because my friend is dead, my friend who lit up a room like Oxford Street at Christmas, she’s dead, and so what else is there?
‘I don’t trust you when it comes to doctors.’
He laughs. It is rich and warm and pleasant, as though the woman who taught me how to roll a joint isn’t lying in a pool of blood next door. I have to keep my head. I have to think clearly.
We’re standing in the hallway. The light is diffuse and grainy. I am trying not to shiver, not to think about Frankie bleeding out alone on a dirty, unpaved road. I choke a sob and Marco looks at me, just once, his eyes crawling over me like searchlights. He is holding up a key, small in his large hand. One look at his eyes confirms all I have feared. There is nothing there at all. The mask has slipped, revealing a simple cold fury.