Nine Lives Read online

  BERNICE RUBENS

  Nine Lives

  For Shaz and Rebecca

  Contents

  ‘Name?’ the warder asked …

  Excerpt from The Diary of Donald Dorricks One Down. Eight to Go.

  Mrs Penny Winston …

  I slept very badly …

  The Diary Two Down. Seven to Go.

  The church clock …

  Me again …

  The Diary Three Down. Six to Go.

  It took five patients …

  I slept very badly …

  The Diary Four Down. Five to Go.

  When Wilkins was informed …

  It’s my birthday today …

  The Diary Five Down. Four to Go.

  Wilkins was idling …

  Donald’s been moved …

  The Diary Still Five Down. Four to Go.

  Wilkins was uneasy …

  I’d had a letter …

  The Diary Six Down. Three to Go.

  When the news …

  It is the boys’ birthday …

  The Diary Still Six Down. Three to Go.

  Wilkins’ colleagues …

  Visiting day …

  The Diary Seven Down. Two to Go.

  It was Save the Children …

  I’m still ashamed …

  The Diary Eight Down. One to Go.

  The symposium plodded along …

  Today is visiting day …

  The Diary Still Seven Down. Two to Go.

  Wilkins considered that …

  I had a letter from …

  The Diary Eight Down. One to Go.

  The clerk at the station …

  Me again …

  The Diary Eight Down. One to Go.

  The death of …

  Me again …

  The Diary Nine Down. None to Go.

  Detective Inspector Evans …

  It’s me again …

  A Note on the Author

  ‘Name?’ the warder asked …

  ‘Name?’ the warder asked.

  ‘Dorricks.’

  ‘Mrs? Miss? Or Ms?’ His eyebrow sneered.

  ‘Mrs,’ I said, and I wondered how and why I had attained such a status.

  ‘Christian name?’ The warder was thorough.

  ‘Verine?’ I said. I posed it as a question, because I was not sure if it would do.

  He wrote down the names in order of unimportance. There was no doubt about the Dorricks or the Mrs. It was the Verine bit that was the problem. I never knew where the accent lay. So when I announced it, I gave equal stress to both syllables, Ver-ine, because I was loath to sell myself short. That’s been my trouble all my life. Not knowing how I’m pronounced. My parents called me Verry, which gave no clue at all. That’s my problem. I think it acounts for all my troubles. I cannot give myself an accurate label. Even my husband, Mr Dorricks, calls me Verry. Such a silly name, considering there’s very little ‘very’ about me. I’m a halfhearted woman. My feelings were stunted at birth and never dared go the whole way. I am irresolute, timorous, shuffling and pliant and have been all my life. I looked after my sons’ welfare but it was Mr Dorricks who arranged their education, their leisure and their future prospects. I complied. It was Mr Dorricks who dictated my wardrobe and I obeyed. Mr Dorricks ruled the roost and I accepted it, unwilling to explore alternatives. Nothing ‘very’ about all that. He might as well have called me ‘Ginger’, solid brunette that I am.

  ‘Down the corridor. First on the left,’ the warder said. I took myself fearfully down the passageway, that half-hearted self of mine, my steps without purpose, except to get the visit over and done with, not knowing what to say, or how to say it. Whether to collude or question, to agree or object, or simply to nod or shake my head, donating to approval or rejection a cowardly ambiguity.

  ‘Hello Donald,’ I rehearsed but I could go no further. I wasn’t going to say ‘How are you?’ because he might tell me and then I would have to accommodate his answer and give him sympathy or grounds for hope. But between you and me, I couldn’t stretch to either. Because I didn’t know what I believed. I just knew that I loved him – of that I was sure. But it was that very certainty that nagged at me, for, after all that had happened, how could I insist on loving him? Then I recalled how affectionately he had cared for me over the years, how wonderful a father he had been to our two boys. So despite the verdict, even if it was just, and I wasn’t too sure about that, how could I not love him? My feelings simply bewildered me.

  He was alone in the room, undeniably visible, so that I was allowed no time to try to locate him. He stood up when he saw me and stretched out his hand. I was disturbed by what looked like a sign of welcome, a plea for sympathy and understanding. I took his proffered hand, and I wondered with horror where it had been and what it had been up to. Then I quickly took a seat to distance myself.

  ‘I’m innocent, you know,’ he said, before I had even time to sit down. ‘You know that, don’t you?’ He almost threatened me.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, because I had to. How else could I validate the many years that I had shared his bed?

  ‘How are you?’ I asked, not meaning to. Not meaning to say anything at all.

  He began to tell me and I tried not to listen. But I heard the fury in his voice, the pleading, the blame, the villification of all those who had accused him and, above all, his enraged declaration of innocence. I heard every syllable of it, but I didn’t listen. Occasionally I nodded or shook my head, expressing nothing at all, as if my puppeteer had gone off for a short break and left two random strings in operation. All through his recital, I was looking at him, but I can’t recall seeing him.

  ‘I love you Verry,’ I heard him say.

  I was stunned. Never in all our years together had he so declared himself. I did not doubt his sincerity, but I marvelled at his sudden outspokenness. He had always been so tight-lipped, so reticent; it was as if he stood naked before me. I was embarrassed yet moved.

  ‘I love you too, Donald,’ I said. I would not deal further with that subject so I quickly talked about life outside the prison, items of news, the goings-on in our street. I lied about them, because most of the goings-on centred around Donald’s crimes and conviction. I talked about the weather, boring myself, and not knowing what I was saying, anxious for my visiting time to be over and done with, yet wary of my freedom in the streets where I would have to wonder what I ought to be feeling. I held Donald’s hand, as much for my own safety as for his, then I heard a recorded voice calling ‘time’s up’, and I sighed with relief.

  I rose. He tightened his grip on my hand. ‘Believe me, Verry,’ I heard him say. ‘Verry, Verry, you have to believe me.’

  It was at that moment I decided to change my name. I smiled at him, or rather to myself, pleased with my decision. I eased my shoulders out of his grip, smiling all the while.

  ‘See you,’ I said, and quickly left the room.

  I strutted my way out of the prison. No longer Verry, that lie of a name. I am Joan now, I decided. No accent problems with that one. Joan Dorricks I am, I said to myself. The Dorricks bit I would deal with later. Perhaps that label too would have to be replaced.

  I wanted to meet someone who would ask me my name just so I could try it out on someone other than myself. I was passing a doctor’s surgery, and on an impulse I went inside. The waiting room was crowded, but it would not affect my purpose. I approached the receptionist.

  ‘I have an appointment,’ I heard myself say.

  ‘Name please?’ the woman asked.

  ‘Joan,’ I said. ‘Joan Dorricks.’ I loved its echo and cadence. Then I left hurriedly as the woman was vainly searching through the appointments book.

  It sounded real enough, I thought on the bus-ride home and I
repeated it to myself, sometimes loudly, so that the other passengers looked at me with pity. And then I began to dislike the name and to see no purpose in using it. ‘Verry,’ I said aloud and I confess I felt suddenly at home with it, though that home had become a place of such horror and misery.

  Mrs Thomas, my neighbour, was weeding her front garden as I reached my house. A semi-detached house, though not on the Thomas side, which allowed for over-the-fence conversation.

  ‘How is he?’ Mrs Thomas asked.

  ‘Fine,’ I said. It was a good response in that it couldn’t be questioned. ‘Fine’ was an absolute term, unlike ‘bearing up’ or ‘very low’, phrases which begged analysis and, worst of all, understanding. And that was the last thing I wanted. I didn’t like Mrs Thomas very much. The woman was after tittle-tattle. She had already profited by her status as the ‘monster’s neighbour’. ‘Such a mild-looking man,’ she told the newspapers. ‘Wouldn’t hurt a fly,’ was the phrase she used on television. Now she would have nothing to report except that, according to his wife, the prisoner was fine, and ‘fine’ didn’t sell newspapers. ‘Fine’ was a disappointing word.

  I hurried up the path, pulling my house key out of my bag. I was anxious to be alone. I needed a board meeting with myself, though from long practice I knew it would come to nothing. As I expected, there was no one in the house, but even after all these months of emptiness its vacancy still surprised me.

  On the day that Donald had been sentenced, my two children had made arrangements to leave home. I still think of them as children, though neither of them will see twenty again. Twins they are. Matthew and Martin. They were a surprise. There are no twins in my family. Nor in Donald’s. At least, not as far as I know, but I know little about his family. Next to nothing, in fact. He has never talked about them and I’ve always been afraid to ask. But they’re lovely, my boys, and very close to each other. What one does, the other will follow. I did not blame them for going. To tell the truth, I envied them, for their departure made it clear that they had no doubts about the verdict, though I could have done with their assistance, but I know it would have been a false support which in time would have crumbled under its own deception.

  I made myself a pot of tea. Two teabags, and one for the pot. As far as I was concerned, my whole family was still at home. Nothing had changed. Donald was walking the dog, and the boys were out with their friends. But when night came, I had to face the still empty house and the board meeting that had come to naught. I thought of going to bed, but I knew that I would not sleep, but would count the days to the time of my next obliged visit. Donald’s lawyers, the ones he sacked, had advised me to move to another town, far away and, once there, to revert to my maiden name. I loved that word ‘maiden’. It branded me innocent. But such a move would confirm Donald’s guilt, and I couldn’t let him down. In any case, he had told me he was innocent, and in all our years together I had never known him to lie. And now I began to share his anger with his accusers and their preposterous conclusions. I cleared the table of its four cups and saucers, and the teapot, still almost full, and I decided that my family would be late home. I would not wait up for them. I would go to my bed.

  Before they took Donald away, I used to look forward to bedtime. He was a great cuddler, my Donald. Warm and cosy, and we fitted together very nicely. But now, since his arrest, I toss and I turn and try to work out what happened. And try not to, at the same time, in case I stumble on something that doesn’t make sense – that maybe points to his guilt – and then I try to stop thinking, which isn’t easy if you can’t get off to sleep. I am so confused. I wish somebody else could tell me what had happened. And why. Somebody will tell it anyway. Writers probably. They’ll get it all right, and they’ll get it all wrong. But they won’t get to the truth, because only I, I, Verry Dorricks, know it. Fairly and squarely. Yet, at the same time, I don’t know it because I cannot face it.

  So let the writers have a go. No one’s going to stop them trying. But none of them is inside Donald, and none of them is inside me. But let them write what they will. The truth has many faces. One need not confront them all.

  Excerpt from The Diary of Donald Dorricks

  One Down. Eight to Go.

  The first was the hardest. I expected that. Nothing to do with conscience or scruple. I have no qualms. It’s a question of practice, I suppose. The next ones should be easier.

  I was meticulous in my preparations. I rang the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy, and I told them that I needed help. I gave a false name, of course, and affected a Scottish accent. But I told them I lived in London. I am not adventurous. London is big enough for anonymity. They told me where I could acquire a list of practitioners and it was up to me to choose someone in my area. They did not ask for my address, for which I was grateful. I studied the list in the privacy of my office. It covered practitioners over the whole country. I settled on a group from the outer suburbs, far away from where I lived. Then I shut my eyes and stuck a pin into the list. It landed on one called Harry Winston. Poor bugger. But whatever he was called, he would do for starters. I rang him forthwith and made an appointment for the following Monday, giving him the name and accent I had used for the Council.

  Mr Winston had a kindly voice, and I did not thank him for it. I would have preferred a gruff and grudging tone, as if he were doing me a favour. I tried to ignore it. His kindness would get him nowhere.

  I had long considered disguises, and I kept the basics in my office. It was there that I stuck on a beard, and donned a trilby hat, in which I looked frankly ridiculous. And the gloves. Most important, the gloves. I’d bought a few pairs in different colours. And then my weapon, unseen in my pocket.

  I drove to Mr Winston’s house, but I parked my car a few streets away. I noticed that there were few people about, it being a quiet residential area, and those few who walked the streets did not worry me. I was confident in my disguise. I carried the gloves but I did not put them on until I faced his front door. There were two bells on the panel, and I pressed the one that claimed ‘Consultant’.

  ‘Who is it?’ came through the voice grid.

  I announced myself and was ordered to the first floor. The door opened and I went through. I was suddenly nervous and I felt sweat on my forehead. As I climbed the stairs, a shadow fell across the landing, and when I reached the top, sweating and shivering, I knew I looked like a suitable case for treatment.

  Mr Winston stepped into the shadow and welcomed me. I wished he had been less of a gentleman.

  ‘Come in,’ he said. ‘Sit down. Take off your things. It’s a hot day.’

  ‘Not the gloves,’ I said. ‘Never the gloves. That’s why I’m here, you see.’ I had done my homework. I knew about glove fetishism.

  ‘As you wish,’ Mr Winston said. He was smiling, clearly looking forward to a field day. He sat down at his desk.

  The sweat was pouring from me now. I felt it dripping down my neck. It was too late to withdraw. I had to finish the job in hand. But his smile unnerved me and, in any case, I would welcome a delay. So I rattled on about the gloves.

  ‘I wear them all the time,’ I said. ‘Can’t take them off. I don’t control them. They’re like glove puppets and someone else is pulling the strings.’ I was rather pleased with my little invention and I smiled at him.

  ‘Someone else is in control, you say? Is that how you feel about them?’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said. I could sense that I’d opened a can of worms and that I had pleased him with the clue I had offered as to which direction he should take. But as far as I was concerned, he wasn’t going anywhere, despite my signposting. Yet I was loath to get on with the job. It was fear that delayed me, I confess, and a little curiosity as to how he would exploit my clue.

  ‘Tell me when and where it began, when you were first aware of this control,’ he said.

  Well, frankly, I couldn’t be bothered and, in any case, I’d run out of invention. So I crossed to his desk and took
the guitar-string out of my pocket. My hands were trembling.

  Mr Winston half rose. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

  I think he was suddenly afraid. I quickly placed myself behind him and forced him to sit.

  ‘Go away, go away,’ he said. ‘You’re out of your mind.’

  I was able to hate him then, and it was easy to circle his neck with my string. I was not out of my mind. I was not even beside my mind. I had never felt so sane. I stood well back so that his blood could not stain me – I had rehearsed my movements often enough – and I pulled the string tight. He gurgled. I had hit the spot. I watched as the blood ran down his waistcoat and his head fell forward. Then he was still. With my gloved hand on his neck, I checked for a pulse. He was gone.

  And so was I. Swiftly down the stairs and out the way I came. As I walked towards my car, I began to shiver. The sweat still poured from me, but I was cold. I passed a group of schoolboys, too busy with their quarrelling to notice me. I was tempted to run, but that might have drawn someone’s attention. My car seemed a million miles away. Once there, I sank into the seat, breathless, and I started to drive straight away, unwilling to give myself time to think. The next one will be easier, I told myself. And the next. And so on until I have completed my mission. I kept reminding myself of the whys and the wherefores I had become a murderer. The reason, the motive, all that made me feel a little better. By the time I reached my office, I was myself again.

  ONE DOWN. EIGHT TO GO.

  Mrs Penny Winston …

  Mrs Penny Winston was a primary-school teacher, and every Monday she was free after three o’clock. Her boys would not be home from school until five, so she had time to do the week’s shopping. It was her Monday routine. She trundled her trolley around the supermarket, and she considered herself a happy woman. Two well-adjusted sons, Paul and James, diligently at work for their exams. Soon both of them would be at university and would probably have left home. And then there would be just herself and Harry and she looked forward to that, for their partnership was a solid one that over the years had grown in affection and respect. ‘I’m a lucky woman,’ she said to herself, and tried not to feel smug.