I ran down the street as fast as my trembling legs would carry me, the ghosts lining the road all watched in awe as Nick stormed one way and I stormed the other. Forgetting my usual deathly caution I yanked open Edith’s front door and slammed it behind me sending dust and flakes of paint quivering to the floor.
“What the hell are you doing?” Edith shrieked having being woken from an afternoon nap in her chair.
I wanted to spew the whole incident but my body wasn’t ready for speech. The adrenalin from the argument had worn off; I crumpled to the floor in desolation and erupted into panic-stricken sobs.
“Dear God, what on earth’s the matter girl?!” Edith hauled herself up from her chair and came to sit beside me on the floor.
After a few minutes the thick swallows and sniffs of grief eased a little and I managed to get myself relatively under control. I explained that Nick and I had gotten together last night and how the new information regarding Nick’s murder had implicated me as starting the chain of events. “It’s my fault he’s dead. . . I killed him Edith!”
“It’s not your fault sweetheart,” she said placing an arm around my shoulder, “You tried to protect him.”
My words sounded garbled through blubbering, “I KNOW! But evidently I did a shit job of it.”
Edith applied a reassuring squeeze to my shoulders. “You did a brilliant job; it just wasn’t on the cards. He’s being a bit of an arse about all of this by the sounds of it.”
“He’s not being an arse Edith . . . It’s my fault he’s dead.” My chest was stammering in reaction to the tears pouring down my face making my speech jarred. “Even if I didn’t do it on purpose . . . I may as well have . . . it wouldn’t have changed the outcome.”
“Did you tell him you love him?” I gave her a perplexed stare in response as it really didn’t seem to matter whether I had told him, but a nod from her emphasised the question.
“. . . Yes?”
“ . . . AND?!”
Twist the knife why don’t you. “It didn’t exactly help things!”
Edith seemed to calm hearing this and she took on a motherly tone. “If he knows that you love him and you know that you didn’t do it on purpose, things will work themselves out”
“No they won’t Edith! I’ve fucked everything up!” I shrugged her arm from my shoulder “Stop trying to make this better; you have no idea what this feels like; I’ve lost him!”
“. . . actually dear, I do . . . My husband? I lost him”
“That’s different, he ran away!”
Her face fell into the dream word of sorrow it had when he was brought up before, “No . . . He died”
Now I feel like a prick. “If he died in the war, why didn’t you just tell me?”
“. . . Because he didn’t die in the war” her gaze found mine once again, “. . . He died the night before he shipped out.”
“What happened?”
“I put a knife in his chest . . .”
WHAT?
I got up, out of her grasp and crossed the room. I needed to see that this was still my Edith; see that she hadn’t morphed into a different person without me noticing.
“ . . . Put a knife in his chest, as in you murdered him?”
A despondent nod answered my question and with every shake of her head my stomach dropped a little more.
“Let me explain,” Edith said, getting up off of the floor as well. “Like I said, it was the night before he shipped out . . . “
Edith was attempting to be the perfect wife for one evening, the last evening she might spend with her husband, trying to evoke the love they once shared. They had fallen for each other madly as teenagers; it was always Eddy and Edith; complete opposites enamoured with curiosity and wonder for the other. Eddy was a strapping, fair haired country boy and Edith a plain looking girl but with an intellect that no one could match.
A mismatched pair, concealed from the judgements of others amongst the gilded ears of corn, planning an unlikely future together. After a heated affair and a wedding that wasn’t entirely in their parents favour, the couple began their new life in each other’s arms. However, the discovery that Eddy couldn’t conceive a child turned him to the drink and their relationship to the wolves. Edith was too proud to go back to her parents so stayed put and took a beating for it.
On this last night, she knew their love couldn’t be fixed; she just didn’t want a bitter taste to be left in their mouths. She knew he wouldn’t come back from the war, whether he died on the fields or lived in a different port with a different woman, Edith was just hoping for one amicable evening to say farewell. Dinner was on the stove, her hair was set and she was wearing her best white dress. Edith has even laid the table with the good china and vase of flowers from the garden. Flowers always made her feel more optimistic; they made her feel brighter.
When Eddy came home, Edith was chopping vegetables and awaiting the opening gambit for how the evening would go. As the door swung open the scent of whisky clung to his clothes and the intent of a fray lay thick in the air. Edith’s hopes fell; she may as well turn off the stove and go to bed now; any illusions of a cordial evening meal had vanished.
She stood in silence, not wanting to bait the man she once couldn’t imagine being without but he had other plans. Riled by the heat of the liquor in his veins, Eddy proceeded to tell Edith exactly why she was an appalling choice of bride. She was an embarrassment, she didn’t dress like the other women, her cooking was atrocious and she never let an argument rest on her husband being right. Tonight was no exception.
The detailed retaliation itemizing Eddy’s failings as a husband and drunken ways were not what he wanted to hear, but the piercing jab about it inability to father children tipped him over the edge. Eddy took the truths his wife had thrown at him and balled them into his fists and to something harder, something Edith could not best him at. Her wit and words were always razor sharp and could cut him deeper than any others; but she was a petite woman and couldn’t best Eddy when his anger took control of his limbs and turned them against her.
He struck Edith to the ground and showered venomous punches and acidic words onto her, trying to inflict as much pain as her could. Edith could feel her ribs creaking, threatening to splinter with every impact. She could feel her skin darkening into smooth sapphire bruises and taste the metallic flavor of blood on her gums.
The alcohol joyriding round Eddy’s body caused him to stagger and momentarily lose balance. Edith took her chance. Her face was swollen, ears ringing and her chest felt like it had imploded. She reached up in an attempt to haul herself away from her husband, but was cornered and instead her hands met a knife handle protruding from the edge of the kitchen counter. Eddy shook his whisky disorientation off and came back for another round; Edith saw the rage in his eyes and panicked. The knife slid through his shirt, through his flesh, through his heart, until the blade docked and wouldn’t move any further.
Eddy froze, his eyes locked to hers before the rage fell to perplexed disbelief and then to the knife extending from his chest. Edith’s delicate, pale hand released the blade; the movement of its freedom prompted a swift intake of breath from him. She remembered the days when her touch would render a similar pull of oxygen, but one that was sweeter; born of desire, where his eyes were alive with excitement not terror.
Edith could not believe what she had just done. She had fantasised about finishing him off many times before but never planned on actually doing it and now Eddy’s face had softened to that of the boy she fell in love with, it felt like the knife was mirrored in her chest.
Eddy remained still. He lingered above her with his hands firmly planted on the counter, fencing her in, forcing her to see what she had done. Until a wry, knowing smile found his lips revealing teeth stained rust and a final breath slid out of his body, carrying his life force out with it. A mist of claret flecks spattered Edith’s face and stained the snowy purity of her dress. The one she saved for special occasions.
He fell to the floor with a menacing thud, still wearing that devilishly appropriate smile. It was like he knew one of them had to die that evening and he was glad it was him, that or couldn’t wait to see how she talked her way out of this one.
Edith sat propped against the kitchen counter, starring at her dead husbands’ body for hours. The dinner burnt, the pots boiled dry, darkness fell throughout the house and just a slanted shred of moonlight oozed into the kitchen to illuminate that smile. It was a poignant parting gift.
“. . . and you just got away with it?”
Edith’s eyes were torn away from the nightmarish recollections and found me once more, “I buried him in the back garden, under the primroses. Said he’d beaten me and left, everyone filled in the desertion story for me and just assumed. They knew what he was like”
I shook my head in disbelief, voice fracturing round the edges with mistrust “I can’t believe you never told me this. You’ve had Five years! Why now?”
“It’s not exactly something you drop into bloody conversation!” Edith sat in her chair and nodded to the seat opposite. “Didn’t you wonder why I didn’t want to move on?”
I wasn’t ready to sit beside her yet. I was still assessing if this was actually her and not some monster disguised as my stand-in grandmother. “I thought you didn’t care! Not that . . . “
“Didn’t care?” I was abruptly cut off; Edith was looking at me in amusement, “About my soul? Of course I care! But I know if there is a hell my name is on the guest list!”
“Oh God this is deep. I can’t listen to this” My brain was still trying to figure out the information regarding Nick’s murder and my accidental involvement. This new admission was trying to make new room in my mind by archiving the previous shock to the system before I had time to figure it out.
“Yes you can listen, and you will,” Edith continued, “There is a man out there that loves you. He hasn’t told you, and he might not think he does at the moment, but he does and it’s plain to see.”
“You’re hardly in a position to give me advice Edi . . .”
“Shut up and listen. I killed the man I loved and every day of my life, and my death, I’ve been waiting for someone or something to drag me off,” Her eyes were filling but she pushed it back “Men like him need to be punished . . . and so do women like me. Nick is not a man like him and you are not a woman like me Jasmine.”
And suddenly everything clicked into place. Damn it, I hated it when she was right. I hadn’t intentionally killed him, or even meant to harm him in any way. I did not want to spend the remaining years of my death terrified that some spooky twins were going to burst in a deport me for a crime I never meant to commit. But the chances are that they would, as even though I never meant to commit the crime, the blood was still on my hands.
The cogs in my brain were grinding against each other, attempting to twist Edith’s situation to match my own so I could heed it’s warning.
The way I saw it I had two options;
a) Mope around for the next couple hundred years trying to mend my little bleeding heart. Go into hiding, wear an eye patch, cut my hair and stay under the radar. Either get noticed and reprimanded or eventually become a Keeper myself.
b) Put things right, give the Keepers something to really talk about and go out with a bang. . . .
“Oh God, I’ve been an idiot.” I said as the obvious choice became glaringly clear in my mind . . . and it didn’t involve an eye patch. “I have to go”
Edith stood with a look of concern mixed with elation, “What are you going to do?”
I turned to the back door; my legs had found a new strength, strength that comes with purpose. Even if it was stupid, reckless, rebellious purpose.
“Where are you going?!” She called after me.
I reached the back door and turned to her, quite possibly for the last time. “I’m not leaving my man under the primroses”