It was more than Thomas was able to bear. He collapsed into a chair and held his head in his hands, his long fingers tangled in his greasy black hair like crooked spikes. When I told him what had happened, he guffawed. I was sure he was still drunk.
When he’d finally stopped laughing, he said, ‘Why on earth would Mrs Wiggs feel the need to push you down the stairs?’
‘She hates me, always has. She doesn’t think me good enough.’
He laughed again, then stopped. His face grew dark and he slunk down lower in the chair. ‘If only you knew…’ he began, rubbing at his jawline, dragging the skin down so I could see the red of his bottom eyelids. ‘If only you knew how difficult things are… at the moment. I have a lot going on at the minute, Chapman. I’m going to need you to be a good and patient wife for the time being. Do you think you could do that? The truth is, I can’t afford to spend time on such petty concerns as the perennial bickering between my housekeeper and my wife. I’m going to have to ask that you get along – it’s essential. If you knew the… intricacies of what I’ve been having to deal with, you would understand.’
‘Then tell me, Thomas. You can start by telling me where you disappear to.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Then I want her gone.’
‘For the love of God!’ he shouted, and jumped up out of his chair. He paced up and down some more and then stopped and pointed a hostile, shaking finger in my face. ‘You seriously believe that Mrs Wiggs would steal a fucking hairbrush and… place this… hairbrush at the top of the fucking stairs, just so she could push you down them? There are easier ways of killing someone, Chapman.’
‘Oh, how so?’
‘You are aware of how ridiculous you sound, Susannah?’
‘I don’t care how you think it sounds; it’s true.’
He wouldn’t have it. He kept going on about this other work, how he was under such immense pressure, that this was not what he needed right now – again: distraction, dismissal, disbelief. When I asked him to tell me what was weighing so heavily on him, he said I wouldn’t understand.
‘It’s better if you don’t know – trust me. Sometimes I wish I bloody didn’t.’
‘Is it something to do with the woman in the attic?’
I couldn’t help myself, but I knew I’d pushed him as soon as I said it. The nerves fluttered in my stomach. It was as if I’d thrown a bucket of cold water in his face.
‘What?’
I smiled. ‘You don’t remember what you told me last night, do you?’
‘What… what did I say?’
‘No matter. I’m sure it’s nothing. Are you going to fire her or not?’
He patted down his trousers and looked about the room in a pink-cheeked panic, which, given his sweaty pallor, made his face somewhat blotchy. His eyes darted about, trying to remember what he’d done with the attic key, but it was not in his trouser pocket and I doubted he remembered wetting himself.
‘Where is it?’ He glared at me.
‘I don’t know,’ I lied.
He came at me, loomed over me with his disgusting breath in my face. I shifted away, but he grabbed my chin and pinched my cheek and turned it back towards him. He looked at the lump on my head and laughed.
‘That’s quite a bump you’ve got there, Susannah. Now, where is the key?’
I thrust my nose close to his and whispered, ‘I. Don’t. Bloody. Know.’
‘Stupid bitch.’ With the palm of his hand across my face, he shoved me backwards.
As he walked towards the door, I called after him. ‘Well? Are you going to fire her or not?’
‘I’ll see you gone first,’ he said, then he swung the door open so hard, it bounced off the wall and hit him on the back as he tried to walk through it. I tried to hide my sniggering, but he turned round and saw me. This made him so angry, he punched the door and made a crack in it. He must have near broken his hand, but he only swore and stomped off.
*
Later that week, on the last day of September, I approached the front door and, like my dungeon gaoler, Mrs Wiggs appeared.
‘Mrs Lancaster, Dr Lancaster asked that you stay inside the house at all times following your fall.’
‘I’m going to see my physician,’ I told her.
‘I can send for a doctor; you only have to ask.’
‘I wish to see my own physician. Please move.’
I pulled the door open, and she hopped out of the way. She knew from past experience I was willing to shunt her if necessary.
‘And the er… baby?’ she said, as I put a foot into the outside world.
I stopped. That was as close to an admission that she’d pushed me down those bloody stairs not in order to kill me or even hurt me but because she feared what might be growing in my belly.
‘It won’t be a concern any more,’ I answered, still with my back to her, and stepped onto the path.
‘Not everyone can be a mother,’ she said. ‘It demands enormous self-sacrifice. Some women don’t have it in them.’
I did turn around then, to see her grinning at me. I had never seen that face before: a smug grin, the superior cat, to join the horse and the owl. A triumphant smile, as if she’d won this particular battle, and would always win.
*
Dr Shivershev’s
