Shape of Snakes

floor.'

'That must have frightened her.'

'It did. She used to wail her head off.'

'Why didn't she fix the board to the door?'

'Because she didn't want the RSPCA to know she was blocking the flap. She'd keep the inspector waiting at the door while she scurried around trying to find somewhere to hide the stupid thing.'

'Is that why you and Sharon kept pestering the RSPCA? So they'd catch her out?'

She blew a smoke ring in my direction, then stabbed it through the heart with the point of her cigarette. 'Maybe.'

I gave my coffee cup a violent shove and watched it slop across the table. 'You had her in a vise. On the one hand Derek was threatening to kill her cats if they did run free; on the other, the RSPCA was telling her she could face prosecution if they didn't run free.'

She took to smoothing her hair again.

'What was she supposed to do?'

'Leave,' she said matter-of-factly, 'and take her cats with her.'

'Just because she was black?'

'Why not? We didn't want a coon for a neighbor.' She retreated rapidly as she saw my expression. 'Look, it wasn't my idea ... I'd have done it differently if I could. But Derek wanted rid of her ... he had this thing about nig-' She corrected herself-'blacks ... really hated them. In any case, she had her chance. The social workers told her she only had to say the word and they'd rehouse us. But she said no, she was happy the way things were.'

'She had no choice. Derek knew where she lived. Her cats were never going to be safe from him.'

'Right, and she got so scared of him in the end, we reckoned she'd leave before Christmas.' She paused. 'Then the silly cow falls under a flaming truck,' she finished lamely, ''and the cops find she's been killing the cats herself.'

I rested my chin in my hands and studied her with grim curiosity. 'They were already half-dead when they were pushed through her flap,' I told her. 'Someone thought it was funny to catch strays and bind their mouths with superglue and parcel tape so they'd either starve to death or have most of the fur ripped out of their heads if Annie tried to save them. I think she killed the weakest ones when the others started attacking them, but it was done out of kindness, not out of cruelty.' I favored her with a crooked smile. 'So whose bright idea was that? Yours? Or your husband's?'

She squashed her cigarette into the ashtray, mashing it to shreds with nicotine-stained fingers. 'It weren't nothing to do with us,' she said flatly, while apparently agreeing with the facts. 'We weren't like that.'

'Oh, come on!' I said sarcastically. 'You've just told me Derek strangled one cat and threatened to nail another to a fence. And all for what? Because he was thick as pig shit and had to terrorize women to give himself a sense of authority.'

She didn't like the way the conversation was going, and licked her lips nervously. 'I don't know anything about that.'

'What? The way he liked to terrorize women?'

She recovered quickly. 'All I know is what he did to me and the kids. But he was more talk than action. Most of the time he never followed through.'

'Maybe not when Annie was alive,' I agreed, 'but he certainly made up for it after she was dead. He was far more violent when he knew there were no witnesses.'

I recalled my visit to her in hospital. It was a wet afternoon at the end of November, and I'd dripped water all over the vinyl floor beside her bed while I tried not to show my shock at Derek's handiwork. I couldn't believe how small she was, how damaged she was, and how panic-stricken her eyes were. It was a wasted journey in terms of gathering information because she was too suspicious of me to answer questions. I listened to her dreary insistence that, far from Derek using her as a punchbag, she'd been alone in the house and had missed her footing at the top of the stairs, while saying in her next breath that she'd be dead if Alan hadn't been there to call an ambulance for her. It was a ridiculous story because her broken cheekbone and blackened eyes looked too much like Annie's death mask for anyone to believe that either of them had suffered an accident; but all too belatedly I was given a glimpse of the walls of terrified silence that protect violent men.

'What are you talking about?'

'Derek putting you in hospital two weeks after Annie's death. Didn't you ask yourself why that happened? He'd never hit you so hard before that you went into a coma and had to rely on your children calling an ambulance for you.' I jerked my head toward the party wall. 'Your protector was dead. Her house was empty. Derek was free to break every bone in your body if he wanted to, then dump you in the road somewhere and claim you were run over by a truck...'

Maureen rejected my suggestion that Annie had been her 'protector.' It was rubbish, she protested-Annie hated her. I repeated what she'd said herself, that Annie had wailed every time Derek raised his voice. 'You asked me earlier who had ever cared about you,' I reminded her. 'Well, Annie did. I know it isn't what you want to hear, but it is the truth.' I took two letters from my rucksack and pushed them across the table. 'The top one's a copy of a note she wrote to your then councillor, J. M. Davies, in June '78. The one underneath is his reply. She obviously didn't know how to spell your name and, because she was incoherent when she tried to raise the matter over the telephone, he put the whole thing down to maliciousness.'

Maureen looked uncomfortable reading Annie's bold handwriting as if, even in reproduction, it had the power to summon her into the room with us. 'Perhaps it was malicious,' she said, laying the letters aside. 'Perhaps she was just trying to cause trouble for me and Derek.'

'Oh, for God's sake!' I sighed impatiently. 'If that was her intention, she'd have made a better job of it. She'd have written a barrage of letters, almost certainly unsigned, and she'd have accused Derek of killing animals instead of hurting them. Can't you see her concern was for you? She says, 'something should be done for Maureen,' not, 'something should be done about the white trash next door because they keep stealing from me.' '